RCPsych eNewsletter

June 2021

Welcome to our eNewsletter for members

In this issue we celebrate the success of our first virtual Congress, greet our new Dean and Treasurer, and explain how you can join our campaign to get a fair deal for mental health.

HRH Prince Charles, has recorded a special message to mark the College celebrating 180 years.

The latest from the Devolved Nations

Read the latest news and blog posts from Northern Ireland.

The Choose Psychiatry Scotland Committee met on 26 May and Devolved Council met on 27 May which was the last meeting for the current Scottish Honorary Officers. Our new Chair, Linda Findlay, formally takes up the role at the end of this month.

We also hosted a Mentoring Workshop which brought together leads from across Scotland who discussed developing and signposting to current Scottish resources across Scotland, as well as a CESR drop in Q and A session for Scottish Medical Managers.

The Working Retired Group met yesterday, and a date has been finalised for the virtual Autumn Academic meeting on 1st October.

We have continued to positively engage in policy making post-election, with a news release based on policy research around increases in eating disorders among adolescents.

Read more news and blog posts from Scotland.

In partnership with TEC Cymru, we hosted the first ever virtual schools debate. The National Mental Health Debate for Young People was on the motion 'does technology improve your mental health', and attracted schools from across Wales, we were joined by the Children's Commissioner and the Deputy Minister for Mental Health.

To coincide with Dementia Action Week, we were pleased to publicise our work in supporting the roll out of FDG-PET scanning to aid earlier diagnosis to services across the whole of Wales.

We held the First Virtual Neuroscience Conference for Wales, this was a success with over 350 delegates.

Read the latest news and blog posts from Wales.

Other news from around the College

The Psychiatrists' Support Service (PSS) provides free, rapid, high quality peer support by telephone to psychiatrists of all grades who may be experiencing personal or work-related difficulties.

Our service is totally confidential and delivered by trained Peer Support Psychiatrists (PSPs). Our PSPs are from diverse backgrounds and have received training in many different areas, to improve their understanding and ability to support all those who call the PSS.

As a service, we are aware that the difficulties faced by doctors vary enormously. We will support you through whatever they may be, including burnout, workplace bullying and discrimination, serious incidents, as well as coping with stress and change. Our support service manager and our PSPs will talk with you in confidence, without stigma or prejudice.

The service can be contacted by phone on 020 8618 4020 or by email at pss@rcpsych.ac.uk.

Later this year we’re migrating our eLearning sites CPD Online (CPDO) and Trainees Online (TrOn) to a new Learning Management System (LMS). The new platform will look and feel more modern, make our content more accessible and enable us to present it in new and exciting ways.

The first phase of migration will launch in summer for those with individual CPDO subscriptions. For those accessing CPDO through their Trusts or who use TrOn, migration will take place later in the year and we will communicate further information on this as needed.

The results of the Tuesday 22 June MRCPsych Paper A will be published on Tuesday 27 July (updated from Tuesday 13 July).

The application window for the Tuesday 5 October MRCPsych Paper B will run from Monday 26 July – Friday 6 August (updated from Monday 26 July – Friday 13 August).

The application window for the Wednesday 8 December MRCPsych Paper A will run from Monday 4 – Friday 15 October (updated from Monday 4 – Friday 22 October).

Find out more about the exam date changes

Since the College became a virtual organisation in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, all meetings have taken place online. The Information Governance Policy and Members’ Privacy Notice have been updated to reflect this change in working patterns, in line with GDPR.