Pitkeathley to be temporary chairperson of GSCC

Baroness Pitkeathley will be temporary chairperson of the
General Social Care Council, it has been announced.

Pitkeathley, who is not seeking permanent appointment to the
post, will preside over the GSCC until the appointment is made
later this year. Fourteen members appointed to the council, were
also announced by health minister Jacqui Smith.

Lay members of the council include former adviser to the NHS
Executive Tanzeem Ahmed, disability equality trainer Christine
Barton and former NHS chief executive Dr Malcolm Clarke.

Chairs of the Council for Disabled Children, Harry Marsh, and
Disability Alliance, Susannah Hancock, were also appointed.

Judith Weleminsky, former chief executive of the National
Council for Voluntary Organisations, and Ann James, GSCC Advisory
Group member, complete the council’s lay membership.

Smith said: “Service users and carers will be at the heart of
the GSCC, and the council will therefore have a majority of lay
members and a lay chair.”

“The overall membership of the GSCC reflects a diversity of
stakeholder interests, and the members bring expertise in a number
of areas which will serve the council in its formative years,” she
added.

Terry Bamford, retired director of housing and social services
at the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and Arthur Keefe,
chairperson of TOPSS England, have been appointed as non-lay
members of the GSCC.

Other non lay members announced by Smith include Helen Baker,
trained social worker and chairperson of the Oxfordshire Learning
Disability NHS Trust, Lynda Deacon, child protection officer and
staff tutor at Open University and Bill McClimont, director and
elected chairperson of the UK Home Care Association.

June Thorburn, director of the centre for research on the child
and family at the University of East Anglia and Beverley Prevatt
Goldstein, project manager at BECON (Black minority ethnic
community organisations network) conclude the group of seven non
lay members.

The non-departmental body will work to improve quality in social
care by promoting high standards in conduct, practice and
training.

The first tasks for the GSCC will be the publication of codes of
practice and determining the requirements for registering the
workforce. The first group to be registered will be social workers,
and the GSCC is expected to open the register in late 2002/early
2003.

 

 

 

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