Cumbria has been rated as one of the best places in the UK for trainee doctors to complete their psychiatry training in a recent survey.
Trainee doctors have given their experience in Cumbria top marks in the General Medical Council’s (GMC) 2018 National Training Survey of over 200 providers across the UK.
Declan Stokle is a second year foundation trainee, completed training with the Crisis and Home Treatment Team at the Trust. He said:
“It is no surprise to me that this post has been ranked extremely high amongst former trainees. It is difficult to get the right balance between service provision and foundation training in the speciality. “However, I believe this post has shown that it is possible to provide a necessary service with the correct supervision and to gain an enormous amount of experience and training in the speciality as a foundation doctor.
“I have learnt so much in such a short period of time and it is an extremely beneficial post for me as it is a speciality that I am interested in pursuing in the future. One of the main things which makes this post so successful is the weekly allocated time for senior supervision, that means any issues that have arisen the previous week can be discussed and change can be implemented immediately rather than waiting until the end of a rotation when that change may only benefit the next trainee.”
Psychiatry training at Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT) was ranked second for overall satisfaction by foundation doctors in their second year (F2) and eighth overall by those in their first year (F1).
The survey gathers views from foundation doctors on their experiences and work environments. Foundation doctors hosted by Health Education England North East and North West complete psychiatry placements with CPFT and their feedback has placed the Trust’s training as number one in several areas including workload and supervision. The supportive environment and feedback were also ranked highly by all trainees.
CPFT training was ranked in the top ten for 13 out of 16 areas surveyed by F2 trainees and in 5 out of 14 areas by F1s.
Professor Samuel Dearman, Director of Medical Education for CPFT and NCUH and Deputy Medical Director for CPFT, commented:
“This group of doctors in training represent the specialists of tomorrow. Psychiatry is one of the country’s shortage specialties and this is certainly true here in Cumbria. Our hope is that if doctors in training have an excellent experience of psychiatry and mental health services early in their careers that they either will go onto work as Psychiatrists or be much better doctors as a result and want to live and work here in our county. The Medical Education team and medical supervisors have worked incredibly hard to ensure these doctors have the best experience they can, in the context of incredibly busy mental health services, I hope we can all take time to pause and recognise what an outstanding achievement these results are for us all”.