If you wish to print off the full e-newsletter, please click
onto the icon on right hand side of the web page - Printable
Version.
1. Professor Dinesh Bhugra
outlines the challenges ahead
2. The new Dean, Professor
Robert Howard, shares his hopes for the next year.
3. FAIR DEAL for mental
health: College manifesto for the next 3 years.
4. Update on the
Psychiatrists’ Support Service.
5. Pilot MRCPsych CASC
(OSCE) examination.
6. Sainsbury Centre
launches a new campaign, A Better Way.
7. Mental Health Network -
leading health organisations call for Cabinet champion to be
appointed for mental wellbeing.
8. DoH - More help for
people with dementia
9. British Indian
Psychiatric Association Trainee Awards 2008
10. Charity Cricket Event: 20th
July 2008, Dulwich College, Dulwich Common, London SE21: 10am to
7pm.
11. What's new
1. Professor Dinesh Bhugra outlines the challenges ahead
Professor Bhugra – who was elected unopposed last November – is
a familiar face around the College, having played an active role in
College affairs at different levels for more than 20 years,
starting as a trainee representative on the Collegiate Trainees’
Committee (now called the Psychiatric Trainees’ Committee).
One major task is the implementation of the
Fair Deal manifesto, which aims to tackle the inequalities that
exist within mental health services. The manifesto has attracted
keen media interest and will provide a framework for three years of
campaigning by the College - a long-term goal that will
last until the end of Professor Bhugra's presidency in
2011.
Professor Bhugra has clear ideas of how to
engage the membership - his biggest priority being a
re-evaluation of professionalism. "We need to ask ourselves:
'What does it really mean to be a professional? Psychiatric
services have changed beyond all recognition and public
expectations have changed as well. Moreover, the whole ethos
of the medical profession is changing to a position where we need
to renew our contract with patients and with society".
"It is amazing to think that there has been no
thorough re-evaluation of professionalism within psychiatry
before. Now, we need a total rethink about psychiatric
services in the 21st Century. It's time for us to
sit down with patients and carers, and other stakeholders including
policy makers, to find out what they want from us, to consider what
psychiatric services might look like in 10-15 years time, and
decide how we can adapt the training of psychiatrists to ensure we
are providing the best possible care." This process started under
his initiative in October 2007 and a final report will emerge next
year.
As Dean for the last five years, Professor
Bhugra has overseen major changes in postgraduate training. "I
have been involved in the development of a new curriculum, new
examinations and new assessment methods such as workplace-based
assessments. We have also worked to make the MRCPsych exam
available internationally, and this will continue in 2009."
Without doubt, medical training is continuing
to go through turbulent times. As president, Professor Bhugra
hopes to provide continuing support and representation to the
membership. "It is clear from last year's recruitment fiasco that
choice and flexibility for trainees has actually gone down, not
up," he says. "This has seriously affected the personal lives
and morale of many junior doctors. But their commitment to patients
has not been affected, and we must ensure that they remain
supported."
Improving recruitment into the speciality is
another of Professor Bhugra's priorities. "Of all the trainees
who took the College exam in June this year, 94% were international
medical graduates. With changes to the visa regulations and
the Department of Health trying to restrict the number of
overseas-trained doctors taking up training posts, psychiatry could
lose out. We need to think carefully about how the College
responds to these challenges. We need to increase the intake
of local graduates, but we also have an international obligation so
that Britain remains in the forefront of international
training. Key to this will be making training in psychiatry
more flexible and providing far more opportunities for
less-than-full-time training."
Finally, Professor Bhugra is determined to
look outside the UK and build on the College's existing links with
the international community. "I believe we can learn a lot
from looking at mental health services and training in other
countries," he says. "I am particularly keen to work with our
colleagues in continental Europe on training, research networks and
quality assurance."
Professor Bhugra concludes: "It is an honour
and a privilege to be elected unopposed. I feel humble at all the
support, affection and help I have been offered over the years; I
am looking forward to taking on all the challenges that I know the
next three years will bring, and ensuring that the College remains
relevant to its members."
2. The new Dean, Professor Robert Howard, shares his hopes for
the next year
I was motivated to stand as Dean because I felt so strongly
about the current changes to medical training. I was disappointed
at the way that all the medical Royal Colleges behaved during the
Modernising Medical Careers and MTAS fiasco last year.
Battered by a Department of Health whose actions appeared to be
characterised by a toxic blend of anti-professionalism and crass
incompetence, the Colleges slipped into a position of unhappy and
helpless acceptance. Dinesh Bhugra found himself in the eye of the
storm through what must have been the most difficult time to be
Dean in the College's history. His particular brand of steady
reassurance and his ability to sense and maintain consensus saw
psychiatry through the waves of crises that hit trainees and
trainers in 2007. He's going to be a great President.
It may be a cliché, but I really believe that
things can now only get better. After all the recent problems with
training, it is very clear that the politicians want to give some
authority and responsibility back to the professionals. You just
have to look at the House of Commons Select Committee Report
on MMC published in May to see how gloriously true this is.
Now it's up to the Colleges - that includes all of us - to take
that responsibility on and to start to put things back together in
a way that makes sense for training and the future of our
specialty.
My main priority as Dean is to put a stop to
us being unhappy followers of other people's agendas. I want
us to have the confidence to say: "No, that's not right. This is
the way that we, as a profession, know that things should be done."
I want us to become confident leaders of change again.
I also want to ensure that the College
connects more effectively with the membership. I know there is
a perception among some psychiatrists that there are 'College
people' and 'non-College people'. We all contribute to the
College and should take ownership of what it does. College
Officers can do more to communicate a more coherent image of what
is going on within our College. But all members should feel a
responsibility to get involved and to feedback approval or
disapproval of what the College is saying and doing on our
behalf.
There's much to do. Over the next year, I
want to see the College return to involvement in quality assurance
visits to training schemes. PMETB and Deaneries have already
told me that they want to see the College working in this way to
support Deaneries and Postgraduate Schools. The Academic
Faculty are already working on proposals that will facilitate the
training of the next generation of researchers and inspiring
teachers for psychiatry. I welcome the new and more flexible entry
requirements for the MRCPsych examination which I hope will
encourage many of those who had perhaps earlier decided to step
sideways out of postgraduate training to now return to it. I want
us to finalise the curriculum, perfect delivery of the on-line
workplace-based assessment system and do what we can to provide
Deaneries with a fair and effective method of selection into
psychiatry training.
Revalidation is a huge challenge and
opportunity for the College. Other Colleges have already had
considerable success with the development of e-portfolios, and I
believe that this is something we should do that would deliver
clear value to members.
One of my biggest concerns is that we are not
doing enough to make psychiatry an attractive career choice for new
medical graduates. I was startled to learn that this year, only 6%
of people who took the MRCPsych exam were UK graduates. At the
moment, I fear psychiatry is seen by many as the specialty to
follow if you can't get a post doing anything else. If we are to
tackle this problem, we need to target medical schools. We have no
shortage of inspirational teachers and role models within
Psychiatry and we have to find new ways of making sure that these
colleagues are positively connected with the minds and souls of
doctors in training.
I know that I will be supported in my new role
by six talented and extremely hard-working Associate Deans: Andrew
Brittlebank, Brian Lunn, Laurence Mynors-Wallace, Greg O'Brien,
Sally Pidd and Kandiah Sivakumar. I very much look forward to
working with them.
I would also like to take this opportunity to
encourage members to write to me at the College or to e-mail me
(Robert.Howard@iop.kcl.ac.uk)
with any comments, suggestions or problems. I am here to
listen to you - the members of our College. While I can't
promise that I'll have all the answers, I can promise that I will
reply to everyone and can make sure that your voices are heard.
3. FAIR DEAL for mental health: College manifesto for the next
3 years
At the Annual Meeting, the College launched its Fair Deal for
mental health manifesto. This underpins the College’s new three
year Fair
Deal for mental health campaign.
Over the past year, through the College’s Faculties and
Divisions, we asked members across the United Kingdom what their
policy priorities were, and what were the challenges and
opportunities ahead. Eight priorities emerged from this
process, with the common thread of a drive for equality.
The eight priority areas are all connected.
We are grateful to everyone who has signed up so far and the
positive responses we have received. However we would encourage all
members to view the website and
sign up. We will then be able to send through
Fair Deal updates, informing you about the progress of the
campaign.
We also hope that you will be able to feed in your
views and comments. Just as the Campaign
was founded on the view of psychiatrists, service users and carers,
we hope that members will continue to influence and shape the
direction throughout the three years. We are developing a plan for
small initiatives and campaigns and, in the next e-newsletter, we
will give a more detailed background to the Fair Deal projects for
the first year of the campaign.
But if this campaign is to have an impact and bring about change
then it is important that members can take it forward locally. We
are really keen to hear about the work that you are already doing
within the Fair Deal priority areas and your thoughts on what could
be done. In the coming months we will be working with Divisions to
find the most effective way of raising the profile of the campaign
and taking action locally.
To coincide with this launch, members will also have received a
new College membership card, which we hope will be useful for
accessing the
members’ area of the website. This
represents our drive to involve more members in the work of the
College.
This is your College and we would like you to be able to get
more involved. I really hope you can sign up and that you are able
to be a part of the campaign as we take it forward.
Neil Balmer, Public Affairs Manager
4. Update on the Psychiatrists’ Support Service
Since its launch at the 2007 Annual General Meeting, the
Psychiatrists' Support Service (PSS) has taken over 100 calls from
members and associates covering a wide range of issues including
bullying and harassment, career pathways, disciplinary procedures,
General Medical Council referrals and stalking.
We are delighted to announce the publication of a range of
information guides for psychiatrists in difficulty, which were
launched at this year's AGM. As well as some of the topics
mentioned above, the guides have information on being excluded from
work, whistle-blowing and the transition from trainee to
consultant. At the moment the guides are only available in printed
format, but they will shortly also be on the College website.
The PSS has recruited nine doctors from across the UK to be part
of our network of support psychiatrists to assist the core
committee in providing support and advice to doctors. We held an
induction day in June to introduce the doctors to the service and
included presentations from external organisations which work
closely with the PSS.
For further information about the new information guides and the
service in general please phone the Psychiatrists' Support Service
Manager on 020 7245 0412 or by email at psychiatristssupportservice@rcpsych.ac.uk
The Royal College of Psychiatrists will be running a Pilot of
the new MRCPsych Clinical Assessment of Skills and Competencies
(CASC) examination at the York Clinic, Guy's Hospital, London SE1
9RT, on Thursday 21st August.
We invite consultants to act as examiners for this important
pilot exam. The examiners do not need to be regular MRCPsych
examiners as what we need is feedback on the new CASC stations from
a wide range of experienced clinicians. The CASC covers all aspects
of psychiatry at a level equivalent to the former MRCPsych Part 2,
so consultants in all psychiatric sub-specialties are welcome.
We also invite other members of the College (e.g. SpRs, staff
grade doctors, ST4-ST6, who already hold the MRCPsych) to act as
"candidates" in the Pilot exam. We believe psychiatrists in
non-consultant grades will find this a worthwhile experience.
Contact: jmayne@rcpsych.ac.uk
6. Sainsbury Centre launches a new campaign, A Better
Way
This autumn, the Sainsbury Centre for mental health will launch
a series of reports aimed at improving the way people with mental
health problems are managed in the criminal justice system. The
reports will form a new campaign, A Better Way. It
will aim to raise the public profile of mental health in criminal
justice and to provoke debate in government, Parliament, the media
and in services. Over the autumn and winter, it will set out an
alternative to current systems and provision that will offer more
effective (and cost effective) responses to mental ill health among
those in touch with the criminal justice system.
A Better Way is based on our understanding that
imprisonment can damage a person's mental health and their future
prospects. As the prison population continues to rise, demand for
mental health care within prisons is growing. The need for more
alternatives to custody is also greater than ever.
A Better Way will call for:
- Better community-based services, both for offenders with mental
health problems and those at risk of offending.
- Changes to the sentencing options available to the courts to
take better account of mental health.
- Improvements to prison mental health care.
Key components of A Better Way include:
- Short-changed: a report showing that investment in prison
mental health care is one-third of what is needed to achieve
equivalence.
- From the Inside: a report based on the experiences of prisoners
of their own mental health and the care they have received.
- Imprisonment for Public Protection: a report on the impact of
IPP sentences on prisoners' mental health.
- Diversion: a report of our research into the options for
diversion, informing the work of the Bradley Review.
- Continuity of Care: a report on what support is provided when
people with mental health problems leave prison.
- Mental Health Treatment Requirement: a report on how community
orders could offer better support for offenders with mental health
problems.
- Employment of offenders: a research project looking at how to
support offenders to get into employment.
7. Mental Health Network - leading health organisations call
for Cabinet champion to be appointed for mental wellbeing
The Mental Health Network has reported that a coalition of seven
leading health organisations including itself have released a
report: 'A New Vision
for Mental Health, from the Future Vision Coalition'.
This calls for action to build on the successes of the National
Service Framework (NSF) for Mental Health, to put mental wellbeing
at the centre of public policy and to improve the quality of life
of all people with mental health problems.
The report argues that action is needed to promote better mental
health for all and to identify children at risk of mental distress
for targeted support. It calls on mental health services to focus
on helping people to get their lives back, not just to manage their
illness, and to give those who use services more control over how
money is spent on them.
'A New Vision for Mental Health' says that mental wellbeing is
the business of the whole of government, not just the Department of
Health. It needs a champion in the Cabinet to ensure all
departments are working together to promote good mental health and
to bring the voices of those who have mental health problems to the
centre of government.
8. DoH - More help for people with dementia
The Department of Health has launched a consultation on the
future of dementia care and a review on the use of anti-psychotic
drugs. The move comes ahead of plans for a full strategy that will
seek to increase awareness of dementia, ensure early diagnosis,
ensure early diagnosis and intervention, and improve the
quality of care that patients receive.
Health Minister Ivan Lewis commented: 'Dementia is a condition
affecting an increasing number of families in our society and is
one of the greatest challenges now facing NHS and social care
services. That is why this first ever national dementia strategy is
so important. It will set out how we will improve the quality of
life for people with dementia and their families, improve the
quality of care dementia sufferers receive, increase awareness of
the condition and ensure earlier diagnosis and intervention. The
consultation is about ensuring the final strategy we publish in the
autumn truly fulfils my commitment to bring dementia out of the
shadows.'
Neil Hunt, chief executive of the Alzheimer's Society, added:
'Today is a landmark day for people with dementia and their carers,
as the Government recognises dementia as a national priority.
Dementia is a devastating condition caused by diseases of the
brain, yet only a third of people ever receive a diagnosis and
families are often left to cope alone until they reach crisis
point.'
The full Strategy,
to be launched in the Autumn, will have three main aims:
- to increase awareness of dementia and remove the stigma
associated with it
- ensure early diagnosis and intervention
- improve the quality of care that people with dementia
receive.
Dementia can be a devastating disorder for those who develop the
illness and the families that care for them. There are currently an
estimated 570,000 people with dementia in England, and this figure
is expected to double in the next 30 years.
Visit the BBC website for recent news stories on the 'dementia burden'
facing the NHS and plans for a review into the use
of anti-psychotic drugs to treat dementia patients.
9. British Indian Psychiatric Association Trainee Awards
2008
The British Indian Psychiatric
Association held its AGM on 14th and 15th June 2008 at
Eastwood Hall in Nottingham. The conference, with the theme
‘Is it all in the mind?’, boasted eminent overseas presenters.
Professor Harry Chugani, from the Children’s Hospital,
Michigan, gave a keynote speech on developmental milestones and
implications for treatment. Other presentations were on the
neurobiology of established Indian complementary medical practices
such as meditation and yoga, the neurobiology of bipolar disorder,
and the neurobiology of suicide and religion and its implication
for a contemporary society.
Professor Dinesh Bhugra, who has been a life
member of BIPA, was introduced to the meeting on the occasion of
his election as the President of the RCPsych. Dr Kartik
Tangavella won the BIPA trainee award 2008 and he received his
prize from former president Professor Sheila Hollins.
For details of future BIPA Conferences, visit www.bipa.org.uk
Dr Raj Attavar, Consultant
Psychiatrist, Ridgeway Mental Health Trust
10. Charity Cricket Event: 20th July 2008, Dulwich College,
Dulwich Common, London SE21: 10am to 7pm.
Dear Colleagues
I am a ST2 psychiatrist based in Lewisham. We are conducting a
charity cricket event to raise funds for Psychiatry Research Trust
which is a registered charity based at the Institute of Psychiatry
in London - www.psychiatryresearch.org.uk
Three teams will be competing in a 20 -20 over format
tournament, playing three games. The teams are from University
Hospital Lewisham/Lewisham Mental Health, Manchester and Lashings
World XI (www.lashings.com).
Lashings is a very famous cricket club, whose players include
Richie Richardson (WI),Chris Cairns (NZ), Marvan Attapatu (SL),
Rashid Latif (PAK), Dinesh Mongia (IND), Henry Olanga (ZIM), Greg
Blewett (AUS). Please visit www.psychvision.co.uk for
further details.
You can book online so that your name will be on the
entry list. If anyone is interested in making a
donation or is able to get sponsors for us, we would very much
appreciate your support. Donations can be made online:
http://www.justgiving.com/psychvision.
We have 600 tickets priced at £15 each, so please book your tickets
fast. Tickets are also available at the venue on the day of
the event. There is free car parking, children under 12yrs go
free, and there is entertainment with a hip hop-reggae performance,
food/snack stalls, bars, raffles, music, souvenirs and memorabilia
auction etc.
Dr.Omer Malik omer.malik@slam.nhs.uk
11. What's new