The Division of Health Psychology is frequently asked to comment on initiatives related to health policy, promotion, education and research. These calls are usually issued by governmental services such as the NHS or Department of Health, independent organisations responsible for standards in health, such as NICE, independent reports compiled on behalf of the government (e.g., the Cooksey review of UK Health Research), and international organisations such as the World Health Organisation.
The calls are forwarded by the BPS who identifies the relevant divisions and sends them to the divisional representatives, who in the DHP is the Consultation and Specialist Knowledge Co-ordinator, Dr Maggie Donovan-Hall. She will then identify a suitable specialist or specialists from the specialist knowledge list and approach them to ask whether they are prepared to make a comment and, if so, to forward their comments to her by a specified deadline. She will then collate their comments and return them to the BPS.
Responses will be recorded on a specialist reviewer log for the sub-committee’s quarterly and annual report and will be acknowledged to the BPS, the organisation responsible for the call and in this section of the DHP website with a link to the final consultation response.
Responses do not have to be long, they just need to identify the issues in the consultation document you think are important to health psychology as a discipline and to people who practice as health psychologists.
We are always keen to hear from DHP members who have yet to join the specialist knowledge list. If you would like to be involved in the most up-to-date consultations in your specialist interest areas within health psychology please send a brief resume of your background in health psychology and key words to represent an overview of your area(s) of interest to:
Dr Maggie Donovan-Hall, email: mh699@soton.ac.uk
To access governmental and non-governmental Consultation Papers please visit:
/publications/consultation-papers/consultation-papers_home.cfm