Difficulties arise in the context of the provision of clinical psychological services through the NHS because of decisions made by the OAU, the Pancypriot Association of Psychologists (PASYPSY) states in its announcement.
PASYPSY's objections concern the decisions taken by the OAU to carry out a specialized evaluation for outpatient services of a clinical psychologist, the amendments to the questionnaire for carrying out a specialized evaluation for outpatient services of a clinical psychologist and the decision to apply quality standards - adopting a maximum limit (9 hours) in total time of visits/assessments per day.
Also, in the amendment to the lists of activities related to the provision of Clinical Psychology services, the announcement to clinical psychologists in relation to the recording of clinical notes in the IT system and the decisions regarding the implementation of online psychological treatment interventions involving remote sessions using telecommunications means only for existing patients for outpatient services of a clinical psychologist.
PASYPSY points out that the parallel exploitation by state agencies of the findings resulting from specialized psychological evaluations is poorly treated as a reason to reject the reimbursement of the specialized psychological evaluation, because in most cases the primary value for the application of the specialized psychological evaluation concerns the facilitation of the patient's psychodiagnostic condition and guidance in making therapeutic decisions critical to the patient's health.
Therefore, he notes, when the OAH rejects a request for reimbursement of a specialized psychological assessment for patients with multiple psychosocial problems who are served at the same time by various competent services, it effectively deprives beneficiaries of the right to health care who belong to the most vulnerable psychosocial categories of the population, certainly creating against them a serious unequal treatment.
With reference to the specialized assessment questionnaire for clinical psychologist outpatient services, it is noted that information is required that cannot be objectively collected by the clinical psychologist due to limited access to the medical file, and information is also required that puts the clinical psychologist at risk of violating ethical principles.
"We denounce the OAU's tactic of rejecting requests for specialized psychological evaluations citing as the reason for rejection the claim "the request has not been sufficiently substantiated", without any justification for this claim. We consider this action to be a clearly abusive administrative act", says PASYPSY.
The OAU must, states the Association of Psychologists, when rejecting a request/requirement, provide sufficient justification for each individual case and not respond cumulatively and automatically.
Regarding the announcement regarding the recording of clinical notes in the IT system, the Association considers that it creates conditions for violating serious ethical issues and endangers the therapeutic relationship between patient and psychologist.
As stated in the announcement, by decision of the OAU, it deprived young patients of the possibility of providing a psychological session remotely. "Even when its pandemic COVID-19 was at its peak, the OAU decided that only for those patients who had previously worked with a clinical psychologist, it would reimburse remote sessions if a new need arose. No new patient, even if he developed serious psychopathology and was in isolation, was entitled to remote care from a clinical psychologist through the NHS," it added.
Finally, PASYPSY considers "unacceptable and disparaging the attitude of the OAU towards the professional bodies of psychologists", noting that the Organization proceeded without any consultation with the professional bodies of psychologists as institutionally due to a bunch of decisions, which are "incorrect, wrong and ineffective and hinder the provision of psychological services in the context of OAH in the best possible way".
Source: KYPE