The Board was established in 1990, and is a not-for-profit company focusing on acupuncture education in the UK. It consists of professional and lay members who direct and supervise the accreditation process using the established minimum standards, namely the Standards of Practice for Acupuncture Programmes (SETAPs) set down in Part Two of The Accreditation Handbook.
Board members include:
representatives of the acupuncture profession who are members of the British Acupuncture Council
representatives of teaching institutions accredited by the Board
specialists in education
representatives of other complementary therapies and of western medicine
representatives reflecting the public interest.
Our purpose is to establish standards of professional education in acupuncture within the UK through a formal process of approval.
Our focus is on courses in universities and independent colleges where the primary emphasis is on traditional acupuncture based on East Asian oriental medicine, and which prepare students to be independent primary practitioners of acupuncture within a UK context.
Our key concerns are patient safety, student focus, clear educational standards and a developmental approach.
We aim to meet the highest standards expected of professional regulatory bodies through
clear published standards and processes;
- The BAcC Educational Standards
- The BAcC Standards of Practice for Acupuncture (SPA)
- The BAAB Accreditation Handbook
- The BAAB Code of Conduct
An ongoing relationship between the Board and the profession is essential in order to identify and respond to emerging issues in the world of acupuncture. The Board also maintains a relationship with the world of higher education in order to keep abreast of changing issues in learning and teaching. Contact with the forum of programme providers, the Council of Heads of Acupuncture Courses (CHAC), is a further way in which the Board fosters a dynamic approach to its work.
The work of the Board has been helping the acupuncture profession to move purposefully towards a sophisticated framework of educational practice that is marked by the same holistic world view as the practice of acupuncture itself.