Packed out

The annual Higher Trainees' Conference for general adult trainees was introduced this year and was held on 4 September 2009 at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, London. 46 delegates attended, so the council room at the College was rather full!

The day went very well. We had our first business meeting in the morning and the conference then began with Dr Hamish McAllister-Williams talking about starting research as a trainee and how to get published. This presentation gave a very realistic overview of ways to get involved in research as a trainee and stiumulated much discussion.

This was then followed by a presentation by the Chair of the General and Community Faculty, Dr Michele Hampson, on Leadership: using the national agenda to your advantage. This presentation looked at examples where knowledge of what was happening nationally, and knowledge of national policies, had helped things to progress in particular clinical areas at a local level.

Afternoon programme

Following lunch, and a chance to network with other trainees and the speakers, the afternoon programme commenced with a presentation by Dr Mark Salter on Serious Untoward Incidents. Both Michele Hampson and Chris Schofield formed part of the panel to help provide different perspectives to those difficult situations that people may find themselves in as a new consultant. An important message was to watch your own mental state when going through such a process. The closing lecture was by Dr Chris Schofield, a relatively new consultant working in Nottingham, who spoke about preparing for a consultant post.

Feedback

Feedback from the delegates was very positive. 66.6% of delegates rated their overall experience of the conference as excellent and 33.3% rated their experience as good. 82% felt that the conference was excellent value for money, with the rest saying that it was good. Around half thought that the venue was excellent; others said it was good although a few people mentioned that the room was quite small. All of the sessions were rated as excellent or good by over 85% of delegates. Overall, the comments were very positive and suggested that trainees would like to see more of these meetings, perhaps in different parts of the country.

Topics that people suggested for future conferences included management, new MHA, workforce planning, special interest sessions, consultant interviews, progress in higher training, court reports and dealing with the coroner's court. The main venues that people suggested were London or around the Midlands, which may reflect where the audience were from.

Plans

It is hoped that the higher trainee representative on the General and Community Faculty will be able to continue to arrange a conference each year. There may be scope to vary which part of the country the conference is in, to increase the conference from one day to two days to allow more networking opportunities, or to run similar programmes in different parts of the country, eg London, Midlands and Scotland. If you have any views on what you would like to see from future conference, please email.