Professor Robert Howard

Professor Robert Howard, Professor of Old Age Psychiatry and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist, University College London and North London Foundation Trust

Summary Statement

I’m standing to improve and defend what really matters to members - our standards, services, colleagues and the help we can give to our patients. I believe evidence and clarity of argument improve things for patients and colleagues and that the College can lead us wisely through current difficult times.

Election Address

Psychiatry faces the double challenge of shortages of money and trained colleagues. Mental illness represents 20% of disease burden yet receives less than 9% of funding and weakening of the Mental Health Investment Standard represents a further £300m cut to our services in the current year. We don’t have enough beds or colleagues, while demand and public expectations on our services have risen. Unsurprisingly, psychiatrists experience moral injury and burnout. Many leave what have become impossible jobs or do their best to grimly carry on for as long as they can within a system that they feel increasing alienated from.

The strongest theme to emerge from conversations I have had with colleagues is that the College must focus on the concerns of working psychiatrists and deploy the soft power that it carries - by virtue of our respected expertise and wisdom - to restore standards in our services. As President, I will lead our profession in an immediate and open conversation with the NHS and Government to define what safe and sustainable services can and cannot be delivered within available funding. Even if there is no new money, we can fight for mental health to be fairly treated and for restoration of the Investment Standard.

Our workforce crisis has driven an agenda of psychiatrist substitution which threatens patient safety and training. We must urgently define the scope of work for Physician Assistants and oppose dangerous substitution and the undermining of psychiatrists’ expertise and authority within their teams and employing organisations. Protecting and building our workforce will be at the heart of my Presidency. I will introduce a Psychiatry-specific assessment for CT1 entry, College accreditation of how well individual Trust HR systems look after psychiatrists, repair broken connections between resident and consultant psychiatrists, create new training capacity within trusts and the independent sector, support career development of SAS colleagues and transform annual consultant job planning to a robust College-led negotiation to deliver sustainable posts. Please visit my website at profrobhoward.com, read the details of my priorities for change and use the links to learn what I do and what I stand for.

My career has been based on the principle that we can change things by evidence and clarity of argument. I can evidence this from my clinical, scientific and previous College Work. As Dean, I led the recovery of our postgraduate training systems following the shock of MTAS and started the Choose Psychiatry campaign when few wanted to join us. We can use the College as a vehicle to come together to change and improve the experience of being a psychiatrist and of those who use our services. Please understand that I’m not just asking you for your vote. I ask you to look again at your ownership of what should be your College and your willingness to engage with and contribute to a programme of change to improve what matters most in your life as a psychiatrist. Thank you for listening and I hope we’ll have the opportunity to work together.