Faculty chair message - Dr Nick Kosky

Welcome to the website of the General and Community Faculty.

It’s vital to the effective functioning of the Faculty, and the broader College, that you, dear reader, are engaged with and clear about the activities of the Faculty - this website is part of that process. For an understanding of the College structure and where we fit in, see here.

The General and Community Faculty believe in and remain committed to the delivery of comprehensive, high quality secondary mental health services. This Faculty aims to support its members, whatever setting they work in. As our members make up 40% of the psychiatrists working in the UK, this is no mean feat.

As a Faculty, all our members are familiar with issues of risk, uncertainty and complexity in diagnosis and management, and the obstacles that clinical services face. As financial constraints become more and more evident, it’s more important than ever that the Faculty has a strong voice supporting its members and the needs of those they care for. Hot topics for the Faculty for the next year are:

• Developing the clinical networks that have been put in place over the past 18 months.
• Carrying out a census of secondary mental health services, aimed at getting an understanding of their structure and comparing this to the morale of psychiatrists working in those services.
• Leading on the College’s green agenda (yes, it is important).
• We are looking to assist the development of a means to support the use of locally developed quality indicators and audit protocols nationally to facilitate benchmarking. 

Faculty executive

The Faculty Executive consists of 12 elected members, including the three honorary officers, and some co-opted members, to ensure that we can cover all the work of the Faculty effectively. We have co-opted representatives from Divisions and Regions, including other jurisdictions within the UK, as well as the College’s Psychiatric Trainees’ Committee and users and carers, to improve our links with members. We are ably supported by Candace Gillies-Wright, our College administrator. We have representatives on all the major College Committees and have links with all the other Faculties. Our role is to ensure that the perspective of the adult psychiatrist is considered in every aspect of the College’s life. We respond to about 50 consultations a year from a range of external bodies – NICE and the Department of Health being two of the most important - and contribute to the development of College reports. We will ask for help from you in this work.

• We are developing links between our Regional Representatives and individual Trusts
• We will use our eNewsletters and, of course, this website, to make further progress. This year will see greater use of the message board to inform you and get you involved in the work of the Faculty
• We have developed and will continue to support a network for ST4-6s working in adult psychiatry supported by an annual meeting.
• The Faculty Conference offers an excellent opportunity to meet with one another and the Executive and gives the clinical and SpR networks opportunities to meet face to face.

Our strength as a Faculty comes from the active involvement of our members, with the Faculty Executive having a co-ordinating role. So do tell us what you want by contacting us and sign up to receive eNewsletters in the future. We hope to see you at our Faculty Conference, which this year is in Newcastle in October. In recent years, these conferences have proved a great success – and offer good value for money. We have chosen a large venue to meet the increased demand and which will ensure ample opportunity for networking too.  I very much look forward to meeting you and working with you over the next four years.

Regional representatives

Executive committee