Job planning for a community consultant psychiatrist in England

The Community Mental Health Framework offers an opportunity for significant improvement of the management of patients with mental illness in the community. However, in doing so, it highlights a need for new ways of working for all clinical professionals, including psychiatrists in the community.

This document provides guidance for professionals involved in job planning for community consultant psychiatrists in England so that they can support the effective implementation of the Community Mental Health Framework (CMHF). Through its implementation, it will help to establish consistency of understanding regarding the role of community psychiatrists across services.

This document also provides an overview of the CMHF itself – including the wider policy context and the rationale behind it – and considers the framework’s impact on services, and from that, how this should influence community psychiatrist job planning.