2024 Membership Feedback
The results from our member feedback and recommendations to improve membership experience.
Earlier this year 2,231 members gave feedback on their membership experiences, giving us valuable insights into how they engage with the College, what they value, and most importantly, how we could improve the way we support our global membership of over 21,000 doctors.
We've now reviewed the results and will create an action plan for implementing the suggestions to improve membership experience and engagement.
The results showed us that members highly value the College’s conferences, webinars and events, with 72% rating it valued or extremely valued as a benefit and 64% rating our CPD eLearning the same. Amongst trainees, Portfolio Online and eLearning are amongst the highest rated benefits.
Of the functions of the College, alongside education and training, 76% of the members who responded rated the promotion of standards and quality improvement in mental health services as valued or highly valued.
Another key area highlighted was the importance of the College as the voice of psychiatry in influencing decision makers and stakeholders, such as politicians and health providers, with 67% of respondents rating this as valued or highly valued as a College function.
What members said
Further feedback from members who hold roles within the College, showed they feel supported and would recommend these roles to colleagues. However, there is a significant gap in understanding how decisions are made within the College, with 70% of respondents feeling they have little to no influence on important decisions. Some members outlined that “…elected representatives often represent their own views rather than reflecting a consensus of members' views…”.
Time constraints were highlighted as the main barrier to working with the College in a voluntary role (47%), also members not knowing enough about the roles (40%), and not feeling confident or experienced enough to apply (32%).
Overall, 66% of responses agreed that the College represents and advocates for the profession and its members. The free text responses echoed with feedback overall, with specific mentions around:
“Maybe more explanation about what the College does, how decisions are made…”
“Better contact with international members”
“It is such a good idea to reach out for psychiatrists and listen to their views. I hope it becomes a yearly matter with questions that could be closer to the everyday practice”
Action plan
As a result of the feedback and comments, the College will implement an action plan including:
- Improve communication around College governance and decision making (including a video explaining our governance and developing a scheme of delegation).
- Create more engagement initiatives for Fellows of the College.
- Introduce new staff roles to further improve membership engagement, including a Head of Engagement and additional administrative support for special interest groups (SIGs).
- Streamline the governance around College committees and their reporting structures.
- Improve communication around roles at the College and how members can apply and contribute to the work of the College.
- Promote Officers Question Time as an opportunity for members to voice questions directly to the Officers.
- Enhance the induction process for members in College roles, giving them a broader understanding of the College and how their role fits within the organisation.
- Encourage members to utilise the spaces available to them in our offices across the UK.
- Improve ways for members to communicate with the College and to voice their concerns.
- Ensure members know who their accountable representatives are on Council and what they do, and that elected members understand their roles in full.
- Reviewing our social media strategy.
We're so grateful to all the members who participated. Your feedback will help us to improve the membership experience for everyone.
The results of the feedback were presented at the October 2024 meeting of the RCPsych Council and Board of Trustees and will also be shared with members via the December edition of RCPsych Insight.