National Autism Training Programme for Psychiatrists
The NATPP was commissioned to give psychiatrists greater skill and confidence in recognising, provisionally diagnosing and making reasonable adjustments for autistic people using community and specialist autism services.
This contract represents the largest single training programme that the College has delivered to date, with around 1,800 psychiatrists participating in the programme.
Two levels of course were commissioned:
- Foundation – to convey a broad understanding of autism to a large audience
- Enhanced – to provide a deep level of expertise to smaller groups.
The objectives of the programme were to:
- tackle health inequalities for autistic people using mental health services
- improve community support for autistic people, and support for autistic people in criminal and youth justice systems
- create a pipeline of psychiatrists with specialist knowledge of autism who can be deployed to specialist autism teams
- raise awareness and understanding of autism amongst psychiatrists and speciality doctors/associate specialists to improve patient experiences.
Achievements
- 245 psychiatrists attended the live events on the enhanced course, of whom 181 psychiatrists completed some or all of the 16 eLearning modules.
- 1500 psychiatrists attended the webinars on the foundation courses and 785 of these completed all three parts of the eLearning module. Some completed part but not all of the module.
- Attendees spanned community, inpatient, intensive care and secure units, prisons, eating disorder units and all specialties. All English regions were covered and we trained consultants, specialty doctors and resident doctors in higher training.
Changes to clinical practice
Attendees report significant changes to clinical practice, including:
- making adjustments to clinical/administrative processes/environments
- their approach to communicating with patients who are, or may be, autistic
- greater commitment to improving outcomes for autistic service users
- cascading learning down to colleagues/MDT.
Evaluations
Learners have been overwhelmingly positive about the course contents and experience. Comments have included:
Foundation
“Excellent course and really a game changer for psychiatrists of all specialties.”
“Wonderful, insightful and very informative course. Thanks.”
Enhanced
“It has been one of the best courses I have attended – motivating and inspiring in equal measures – and I have recommended it to anyone who will listen!”
“It is one of the best pieces of CPD I have ever done. Just brilliant and so helpful.”
Almost all of them would unequivocally recommend the course to a colleague – our net promoter scores are just below/just above world class product/customer service.
The contributions of the members of the MDT whom we appointed as mentors to promote and encourage conversations in the community of practice were excellent and drove better engagement. In the later cohorts there were six MDT mentors and six psychiatry mentors – of these, several were themselves autistic.
Co-production and the testimony/contributions of experts by experience who had used mental health services added enormously to the validity and emotional power of the courses. The development/reviews used autistic doctors which was very valuable.
As recognition of the quality of programme content and delivery, the NATPP was shortlisted for a Learning Technology award for Best Blended Learning programme (public/not for profit sector).
Learning impact
We tracked learners' confidence in relation to ten statements about aspects of understanding autism and its presentation, diagnosis and management at four points across the programme. The changes in confidence level were impressive.
