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About the Liaison Faculty
Until the 1970s, specific liaison psychiatry services were
virtually unknown in Britain. A small number of specialised
consultant posts were then established but there was no officially
recognised body to represent liaison psychiatry. Informal
discussions between interested clinicians took place in the early
1980's and a consensus emerged that liaison psychiatry would be
served best by establishing a group within the College.
A preliminary meeting was held during the College quarterly
meeting in Oxford in1983 followed by a further meeting during the
AGM in Edinburgh in 1984. The College then agreed to recognise
liaison psychiatry as a special interest group which was elevated
to the status of a Faculty in 1997.
The Faculty has advised the College on the content of training
posts at senior house officer and specialist registrar level. Its
members have also established links with other royal colleges and
have contributed to the publication of joint reports on the
psychological care of medical and surgical patients.
The Faculty now has a membership in excess of 1500. It holds an
annual residential meeting and has organised several joint meetings
with other organisations, including the British Diabetic
Association, the Society of Psychosomatic Research and liaison
psychiatry organisations in Holland, Portugal and the Nordic
countries.
Building on the success of these international meetings, members
of the Faculty have been active in the recent establishment of the
European Association for Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry and
Psychosomatics.
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