Leadership and Management Fellow Scheme
2025/26 Programme
The Royal College of Psychiatrists Leadership and Management Fellow Scheme aims to develop and support a new cohort of emerging medical leaders within psychiatry.
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2025/26 Scheme Programme
This is the programme outline for the 2025/26 Leadership and Management Fellow Scheme.
Most modules will be delivered via Zoom from 9.15am-4.30pm. There will also be three in-person days in September, January and June. Nominees who are successful in obtaining a place on the scheme are required to attend each module in full please check the LMFS assessment requirements and expectations.
Please note these three in-person modules will take place at 21 Prescot St, London (participants in the scheme should reclaim expenses from their local organisation). Modules will not be recorded or available to watch on demand. Please note that there may be unavoidable instances where module dates and/or timings may need to be changed and if so Fellows will be informed at the earliest opportunity.
| Module title | Date | Module leads | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The RCPsych Leadership and Management Fellow Scheme | Tuesday 9 September 2025 In-person session, 21 Prescot Street | David Bishop, Marcin Ostrowski, Ross Runciman, Saleema Durgahee |
| 2 | Authentic leadership: learning your own leadership style | Wednesday 17 September 2025 Virtual session | Derek Tracy, Chief Medical Officer of South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Suhana Ahmed, Director of Medical Education of West London NHS Trust |
| 3 | My project and me | Friday 3 October 2025 | Deepa Bagepalli Krishnan, Specialty Registrar in General Adult Psychiatry - Health Education England (East Midlands) & RCPsych LMFS Alumni and Mudasir Firdosi |
| 4 | Conscious Leadership: working with the unconscious in us, teams, and organisations | Thursday 6 November 2025 Virtual session | Katy Mason and Ruslan Zinchenko |
| 5 | Politics, Power and Persuasion (Part 1) | Thursday 4 December 2025 Virtual session |
Charlotte Cummings, Eden and Partners |
| 6 | Politics, Power and Persuasion (Part 2) | Friday 16 January 2026 In-person session, 21 Prescot Street | Catherine Eden, Managing Director, Eden & Partners |
| 7 | Clinical informatics and digital leadership | Tuesday 10 February 2026 Virtual session | Ayesha Rahim, Deputy Medical Director & Chief Clinical Information Officer - Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust Asif Bachlani, Consultant Psychiatrist & Clinical Lead for Woking Autism/ASC Pathway, Priory Hospital, Woking |
| 8 | Inclusive Leadership: leading effective teams | Wednesday 11 March 2026 Virtual session | Ananta Dave, Medical Director - Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Gareth Thomas, Chief Medical Officer, Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS FT, and Ananta Dave’s to Chief Medical Officer, Black Country Integrated Care Board |
| 9 | Connection across the system | Wednesday 29 April 2026 Virtual session | Billy Boland, Medical Director - South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust |
| 10 | A celebration: from then, to now, to next | Friday 5 June 2026 In-person session | David Bishop, Marcin Ostrowski, Ross Runciman, Saleema Durgahee |
Additionally, there will be three mentor information sessions via Zoom (exact dates tbc):
- September 2025, 12-1pm
- November 2025, 12-1pm
- February 2026, 12-1pm
Module overviews
Here you can locate the module overviews for the 2025/26 Leadership and Management Fellow Scheme.
Doctors should endeavour to know and understand themselves, their impact on others and be constantly striving to improve. This module supports fellows to start this process and provides them with tools to continue. The module covers how leaders across of their career spans have developed their own leadership and how their style varies. The fellows are given the opportunity to reflect on their own personalities and the impact this has on how they lead. The theory behind different leadership styles are covered alongside identifying your own values and how all these components fit together. We cover how our behaviours and leadership styles may impact others, including in some true to life scenarios involving conflict.
The module leads (with their very different personality and leadership styles!) provide you with a safe space, knowledge, tools & their own personal experience and reflections to help you develop into an authentic leader, even in the most challenging situations.
The Projects Module is designed to advance leadership development by providing fellows with essential project management skills to drive meaningful service improvement. The module combines focused knowledge bursts, opportunities to present project ideas, and insights from eminent change leaders. Using a structured approach grounded in proven improvement methodologies and tools, it emphasises meaningful engagement with staff, service users, and carers, alongside robust measurement, reflection, and continuous learning to deliver sustainable change. Experiential learning through project pitches, peer feedback, and real-time application encourages fellows to “learn by doing,” building confidence and capability to navigate complex systems, address resistance, and embed improvements. Reflection and feedback are integral throughout, ensuring leadership growth is continuous and firmly rooted in real-world challenges. The module is designed and led by Dr Deepa Bagepalli Krishnan and Dr Mudasir Firdosi, both of whom bring extensive experience in quality improvement at local and national levels.
Have you ever wondered why people behave in ways that seem irrational or counterintuitive, despite common sense and clinical guidelines? What toll does working with mental disturbance take on individuals and institutions? Can organisations become “mad”? Why is it so hard to change harmful practices?
This module explores how unconscious processes shape leadership, team dynamics, and organisational culture in psychiatry. Through four core theoretical frameworks: psychodynamic theory, group analysis, systems theory, and mentalisation theory, you’ll learn to recognise and work with hidden dynamics that influence everyday practice.
Participants are asked to complete some brief preparatory reading before the day to help them get the most out of the experience. The day includes lectures, facilitated group discussions, experiential exercises and a case study analysing the Edenfield scandal.
Participants will reflect on their own experiences and leave with greater self-awareness and practical tools to lead reflectively and effectively.
An essential module for any future psychiatric leader.
Led by Charlotte Cummings, a facilitator who specialises in organisational and leadership development in the NHS, this engaging course brings the context of our health and care system to life, offering you a clear and ‘jargon-free’ look at how decisions are made and who’s behind them.
You’ll explore the evolution of our health and care system and its key players, to understand how their decisions shape the services we deliver every day. With real-world examples, and group discussions, you’ll dive into the practical side of how policies impact your role, and the care patients receive. This session isn’t just theory—it’s about giving you the tools and insights to navigate the evolving NHS and actively contribute to improving services. This course is designed to make the politics and policies of the health and care accessible, relevant, and directly applicable to your role.
Politics, Power, Persuasion and Partnership is a one day, immersive simulation that supports doctors to better understand the wider, local system in which they are working, the impact of organisational and big ‘P’ politics, how that understanding can help ‘get things done’ and influence change more successfully. The day supports the development of non-clinical skills such as influencing, working in partnership across organisations, preparing to defend a position publicly and receiving challenge from people who use, oversee and work with NHS staff; all skills that are vital for doctors as they advance in their career.
Participants become leaders of a health and care economy, exploring the relationships and tensions between NHS organisations, local authorities and the VCSE sector affording a safe forum to test the water and identify the means and opportunities for integrated working within the health and care family. The day culminates in ‘the system’ presenting to a Scrutiny Committee on a current topic.
The digital module of the LMFS is designed to equip the next generation of medical leaders in psychiatry with a clear understanding of the challenges, complexities and the opportunities that digital transformation brings to mental health. The module does not focus on technical expertise (none of which is a necessary prerequisite to the module), and instead emphasises the leadership skills necessary to harness the opportunities that digital advancements bring to mental health services. This module will help foster critical thinking, innovative leadership, and practical solutions to enhance patient outcomes, service efficiency and staff experience. Completion of the module will help future medical leaders to discriminate between the hype, and the genuinely transformative digital innovations. The module is designed and developed by Drs Ayesha Rahim, and Asif Bachlani – both of whom have large-scale digital transformation experience at a local and national level.