Recruiting more psychiatrists

Nearly five million people watched and read about the UK’s need for more psychiatrists last week as our award-winning Choose Psychiatry campaign began with a bang.

The College’s excellent media team were successful in getting our launch story featured on Sky News, LBC and Times Radio, with our President Dr Adrian James, Dean Professor Subodh Dave, former Dean Dr Kate Lovett and Dr Ananta Dave being interviewed.

The story pointed out that there’s one psychiatrist per 12,000 patients in the UK and called on the Government to expand the medical school training places to help ease the burden.

Overall there were 200 pieces of coverage, which also included coverage in the Sun, Daily Mirror and Daily Express.

We launched the campaign on 7 October in the run up to World Mental Health Day. Our engaging film highlights what it is to be a psychiatrist, what inspires doctors to choose their faculty and the rewards they gained.

We also highlighted the patient perspective because we wanted to demonstrate the difference a psychiatrist can make in truly helping their patients. Vitally, we wanted to show that this is a role that brings job satisfaction for years.

The campaign is also supported on our Twitter channel and we’ve had great help from Elaine Lockhart, Jon Goldin and Mani Krishnan who have all willingly explained why they’ve chosen their particular faculty.

As the campaign rolls on through October and November there will be events designed for core trainees and higher trainees.

Back to 14 October 2021 Members' update.