SEC/42/16
Minutes of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland, Executive Committee Meeting held on 25th August 2016 at 2.00pm in the BMA Offices, Queen Street, Edinburgh
1. Present
Dr Alastair Cook (Chair); Dr Polash Shajahan (Meetings Secretary); Dr Andrew Robinson (Finance Officer); Dr Andrew Bailey; Dr Eleanor Brewster; Dr Roch Cantwell; Dr Paul Cavanagh; Dr Jim Crabb; Dr John Crichton; Dr Iain Fergie; Dr Jude Halford; Dr Tracey Holley; Tracey Laird; Dr Peter LeFevre; Dr Katharine Logan; Dr Seamus McNulty; Dr John Mitchell; Carolyn Papakyriaku; Dougie Pickering; Dr Stephen Potts; Dr Werner Pretorius; Dr John Russell; Dr John Summers; Dr Shona Walker; Dr Andy Williams.
In attendance
Angela Currie (minutes)
Karen Addie
Laura Hudson
Dr Adrian James (Registrar, RCPsych)
2. Apologies
Apologies for absence were received from: Katharyn Barnett; Dr Susie Brown; Dr Hannah Driver; Dr Rekhe Hegde; Dr Ahmed Khan; Dr Elaine Lockhart; Dr Anne McFadyen; Dr Lorna McWilliam; Dr Chris Pell; Dr Rhiannon Pugh; Dr Carol Robertson; Dr Alan Spratt; Dr John Taylor.
3. Announcements
Dr Cook welcomed the College Registrar Dr Adrian James to the meeting. He also welcomed new members Tracey Laird (Service User representative), Eleanor Brewster (Vice Chair of the Intellectual Disability Faculty in Scotland) and Dr Alan Spratt (PTC Representative) to the meeting.
The Committee noted that the PTC Representatives for Scotland are now:
● Dr Meera Patel
● Dr Laura Sutherland
● Dr Andrew Bailey
● Dr Andrew Lawton
● Dr Hannah Driver
● Dr Alan Spratt
Dr Cook reported that the College had sent a letter of congratulations to Dr Denise Coia, former Chair of RCPsych in Scotland, who was awarded a Damehood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to mental health.
4. Minutes of the Previous Meeting (Paper SEC/28/16)
The minutes of the meeting held on 19 May 2016 were accepted as a true and accurate record with the following amendment:
● Page 10, item (iii), line 5 – remove the reference to journalists.
5. Matters for Discussion and Decision
Dr Cook invited Dr Adrian James to talk about his role as Registrar of the College. Dr James began by thanking the members and staff in Scotland for their contribution to the College and spoke about how impressed he was by the work carried out in Scotland. In particular he highlighted the work in Scotland with other stakeholders and links with politicians and policy makers. Dr James said that he had been Registrar of the College since July 2015 and noted that the role has a breadth of responsibilities including membership engagement. He then summarised some of the issues the College is currently facing including: integration of health and social care; commissioning and mental capacity legislation. Recruitment and retention continues to be a central focus for the College and Dr James highlighted the value of the work by Tom Brown already carried out in this area. In terms of the media, there is a lot of focus on links between terrorism and mental health and the College is working hard to address this. A group has been set up to look specifically at counter-terrorism and Dr James is Chairing that.
Dr James reported that Mr Paul Rees has been appointed as Chief Executive and will be joining the College in November taking over from Vanessa Cameron when she retires in December. Mr Rees has a background in PR and media and is currently the Executive Director of Policy and Engagement at the Royal College of General Practitioners. The Committee also noted that Kim Catcheside had joined the College as the Director of Strategic Communications. Dr James then referred to the College Congress in 2017 which will be held in Edinburgh and apologised that the dates for this event will overlap with the Scottish school holidays.
(i) 2016-2017 Work Plan Update
Dr Alastair Cook reported that the Devolved Councils proposal for the Celtic countries will be discussed at the next meeting of College Council. If the change is agreed then it will then go to the AGM and the Privy Council next year for final approval and Dr Cook confirmed that it is therefore likely to be a further 18 months before it is complete.
He then went on to say that the RCPsych in Scotland had spoken with Kim Catcheside this week regarding the need for a Communications and Media Strategy in Scotland (and Wales and Northern Ireland) and there have been initial discussions around a possible timeframe to begin working on this. Kim Catcheside is currently recruiting staff for her team to deliver on building up the new communication strategies for the College. She has suggested meeting with a number of key members from the RCPsychiS Executive Committee later this year or early in 2017 and Dr Cook suggested a good starting point would be the Faculty Chairs. They would then aim to produce a draft strategy to be circulated at the February 2017 Executive Committee Meeting. Dr Cook said he would envisage the RCPsychiS would then be in a better position to react to the media and also to carry out some proactive media work in promoting positive mental health. The RCPsychiS will be looking to members of the Executive Committee for their ideas and thoughts about what kind of stories to promote from a psychiatric and evidence based perspective on a regular basis.
Dr Steve Potts pointed out that the member of staff in London responsible for the communication and media strategy will need to know what is happening in the Celtic nations so they can react appropriately and work effectively with the staff in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Dr Cook confirmed that there will be someone in Kim Catcheside’s team who will have this remit and the commitment is there to have that link.
Dr John Crichton asked if the College intends to have an out of hours contact with regards to responding to the media. Dr Adrian James agreed that there is a need for this within the College across the UK and confirmed that Kim Catcheside’s team will be looking at a 24/7 response.
Dr Jude Halford enquired about College media training. Dr Cook said that the UK College is looking at this and also to spread the training more widely with members involved with the media.
(ii) Re-branding Psychiatry
Dr Cook asked Dr Jim Crabb to talk to the Committee about this topic which was presented by Lee Barber, an advertising executive at the General Adult Faculty meeting in May. Dr Crabb referred to the powerpoint presentation which was previously circulated to the Committee with the agenda. The presentation was about the perception of psychiatry as a specialty and a prescription for changing it. Lee referred to the different levels of conversation about psychiatry (society, medical profession and medical school level) and the reputation problem that the specialty currently has. He recommends changing the conversation at medical school level. Dr Crabb said that recruitment into psychiatry in Scotland from medical school needs to increase from 2% to 4%. In the past Psychiatry has been sending the message that it is like all other areas of medicine and therefore just as valid and valued.
Lee Barber has pointed out that from an advertising perspective this is the wrong message and Psychiatry should instead celebrate that it is proud to be different from other medical specialties and define the profession by the type of people it needs. Dr Crabb said the next step is for himself and Dr Neil Masson, Chair of the General Adult Faculty in Scotland to meet with Dr Tom Brown in the next few weeks to see if any of Lee Barber’s suggestions can be built into the recruitment strategy. Dr Cook then asked the Committee for their feedback.
Dr Steve Potts said that the presentation was refreshing but expressed some scepticism and said he was not sure that rebranding was the solution to the recruitment problems facing the specialty. He referred to the upcoming medical summer school event in Dundee at the weekend which has struggled to attract enough people. He then suggested that efforts should concentrate on increasing the numbers at events such as these before rebranding. Dr Jim Crabb acknowledged this but added that this perhaps says something is happening in medical school that changes student’s perspective of the specialty.
A number of members were enthused by the presentation. Dr Crichton suggested that this could be an opportunity to work with the medical schools to put forward a positive message and it would be useful if this could be part of the induction programme for medical students.
Dr Cook reported that Dr Brown is moving on from his role at the UK College as the Associate Registrar for Recruitment and also will be stepping down as Chair of the Scottish Recruitment and Training Group (STARG) at RCPsychiS. Dr Rhiannon Pugh has agreed to take over as Chair of STARG which will then give the RCPsychiS a good link between NHS Education Scotland (NES) and STARG. Dr Cook then spoke about thinking of the type of work RCPsychiS could be doing to target medical students and, potentially, schools. He added that there is potential for the rebranding suggested by Lee Barber to be helpful in advising the College how to do this. He then referred to the Safespot initiative which is an app available to school children which provides them with support and links into services. This was an initiative by a number of CAMHS trainees and it is now available to all schools in Scotland. Dr Cook suggested that STARG could look at doing something similar for medical students which could give them access to resources and information. It is hoped Lee Barber could speak at a future STARG meeting to give them some ideas and thoughts to take forward.
Dr Adrian James suggested that Re-branding Psychiatry would be a good topic for a keynote at the next International Congress. Dr Alastair Cook agreed to propose this with London first and then approach Lee Barber to see if he would be available.
Dr Steve Potts spoke about a programme by Edinburgh University that brings in school students for medical placements across all specialties. He said there has been a reluctance up till now for this to include psychiatry but he said he thought that this should be reviewed.
Dr Cook confirmed that the RCPsychiS will discuss with Rhiannon Pugh as Chair of STARG about a new recruitment campaign for Scotland targeting medical students and school pupils and call on expertise for how that might look.
6. Meetings Secretary Report
Dr Shajahan reported that the Autumn meeting will be held at the Roxburghe Hotel in Edinburgh on Thursday 29th and Friday 30th September 2016. An updated programme with the full line up of trainee presentations is now available on the Scottish webpages.
The Winter meeting will take place on 27th January 2017 at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Glasgow and the theme for this meeting will be “Terror and the Psyche”.
The Autumn meeting 2017 will take place on Thursday 28th and Friday 29th September and the suggested venue is the Inchyra Grange in Polmont but this is still be confirmed. Dr Shajahan said that preliminary thoughts about the theme for this meeting include personality disorders, suicide prevention, an academic afternoon and trainee presentations for a half day.
Dr Shajahan also spoke about the International Congress for 2017 and the possibility of Scottish speakers contributing to this programme. He asked the Committee to get in touch with the RCPsychis if they had any suggestions for speakers for this. Dr Cook added that there is potential for the RCPsychiS to have a Scottish fringe session in the programme and also host an informal occasion in the evening. He highlighted that this would be a good opportunity to embrace the Congress next year and give Scotland a bit more of a profile at the event and urged Members to get in touch with their ideas for this and other future Scottish events.
7. Finance and budget (Paper SEC/31/16)
Dr Andrew Robinson confirmed that the RCPsychiS continues to have a healthy cash balance and the RCPsychiS are currently working on the financial plans for 2017. Dr Cook highlighted that the closing balance has steadily increased year by year to support Scottish activities and this means there is an opportunity to spend some money from reserves on high profile areas such as recruitment and retention.
Dr Polash Shajahan informed the Committee that there would be three trainee presentations prizes at the upcoming Autumn meeting this year instead of one. He suggested looking at more prizes or money further down the training ladder to medical schools. There followed some discussion on the value of prizes and it was highlighted that there had been very few submissions for the research prize this year. Dr Shajahan announced that the prize will now be rolled over to next year when it will be worth £1000.
8. Reports and Consultations (Papers SEC/29/16 & SEC/29a/16)
(i) Written Evidence to the Health and Sport Committee on the Mental Health Strategy
The Committee noted that the RCPsychiS had submitted written evidence to the Committee on what should be in the next Mental Health Strategy. A section had been included specifically in relation to the questions the Committee had asked about children and young people.
(ii) Mental Health in Scotland – A Ten Year Vision (Consultation)
Dr Cook referred to the Strategy Consultation and confirmed that the RCPsychiS is currently talking to the Scottish Mental Health Partnership about the current consultation. Dr Cook confirmed that he would like to submit a College response in addition to the Partnership response but the RCPsychiS had received very few responses so far. He then invited Dr John Mitchell to provide some more information for the Committee on the Strategy. Dr Mitchell confirmed that the 2012-2015 Strategy ceased in December last year. The new strategy is a 10 year vision for mental health rather than the previous 4 year strategy. Also in parallel to this there is a ten year vision for children and young people (mental and physical health). In preparation for the strategy the Scottish Government met informally with a variety of stakeholders in order to identify the priority areas that were then presented to Maureen Watt, Minister for Mental Health. From this 8 priorities areas were identified and are presented in the consultation document. Dr Mitchell reported that events are planned across Scotland to ask people what they think in addition to inviting written comments.