Medical

The trust is home to many different departments that can offer training opportunities.

It hosts the Regional Affective Disorders service, which is one of the limited tertiary services in the UK to provide inpatient and outpatient services for complex affective disorders.

Other specialist services include the neuropsychiatry service, Regional Eating Disorders service (REDS), perinatal service, Gender Dysphoria service, mental health and deafness service, Complex Neurodevelopmental Disorder service, Adult ADHD service and a very well established academic unit and research and development department.

Excellent training opportunities are available in:

• Forensic psychiatry
• Psychotherapy
• Learning disability/forensic learning disability services
• Rehabilitation
• Community and urgent care adult services
• Crisis team
• Liaison psychiatry
• Old age services (functional and organic)
• Memory clinics
• Child and adolescent mental health/children and young people’s services (CYPS)

We have received some outstanding feedback for the clinical and educational supervision our trainers provide in foundation training. This makes CNTW one of the few trusts that are a “positive outlier” in the GMC trainee survey in 2013-2014.

All of our foundation year 1 supervisors are educational supervisors within the foundation program scheme, participate in ARCP panels and are well versed in foundation e-porftolio and curriculum requirements.

We support all our foundation trainees to engage in clinical governance opportunities, such as audits and service evaluations. There have been several audits that foundation trainees have completed individually or with other core trainees in their placements here. We aim to develop a dedicated section for foundation trainees in the trust’s medical development day that will include poster presentations, presentations of other outstanding achievement, etc.

Examples of completed audit projects by foundation trainees are available from our audit department.

Foundation trainees will be encouraged to participate in other available opportunities, such as communication skill courses, psychotherapy supervision/balint groups – some of which are specifically targeted towards foundation and GP trainees.

We have well organised post graduate case conference and journal club programmes and sessions running across the trust. It is mandatory for each trainee to attend these sessions, which are bleep-free and provide opportunities to learn from cases in different psychiatric specialities. All trainees will have the opportunity to present in this forum.

Our trust has received excellent feedback from foundation school visits that have highlighted several areas of good practice.

Life as a doctor at CNTW

The Trust is committed to providing high quality medical education for all medical students and doctors in training.  We work in partnership with Health Education England (North East and Cumbria) to provide postgraduate support and training.

There is a strong medical education governance structure throughout the Trust, led by the Medical Director, and supported by the Director of Medical Education and dedicated clinical staff focused on delivering and supporting high quality training.

We consistently rate above the national mean for Overall Satisfaction in the trainee GMC Survey.  We have ranked in the top quartile nationally for three consecutive years in both the trainee and trainer survey.

Foundation Training

We provide four-month placements for Foundation Year 1 and 2 doctors in a range of specialties.  Trainees receive a bespoke induction into working in psychiatry.  F2 trainees are also supported in first-on-call rota, which offers them unique insight into emergency psychiatry.  We maintain a close working relationship with all acute trusts to support FYs rotating into us. We are one of the only FPs in the region that provides placements in specialties such as neuropsychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry and forensic psychiatry. We have been in the top 10 mental health trusts for Foundation training across the country in the GMC survey. Foundation training is well integrated with the rest of the our opportunities, such as access to trainee development programme and presentation opportunities in local postgraduate training. All our posts have elements of community working within their timetable.

Foundation Taster in Psychiatry

We encourage trainees to access our taster sessions for up to five days.  They are bespoke, created according to your interests and requirements, and are available in a wide variety of specialties and sub-specialties. Contact [email protected] for further information.

GP Training

We provide six monthly placements for GP trainees.  Our GP training scheme has consistently performed to exceptional standards and evaluates very well in the regional GP surveys.  GP trainees are also supported in first-on-call rota, which offers them unique insight into emergency psychiatry.  We are committed to offer community experience for all our GP placements and seek to continually evaluate and develop these posts. The GP specific monthly teaching programme is evaluated very well and incorporates all the relevant aspects of mental health presentations that one would encounter in primary care.

Core Psychiatry Training

Core Trainees rotate through placements in a variety of specialties, including some of the unique opportunities within the region, such as tertiary regional affective disorders service, neuropsychiatry, forensic psychiatry, forensic child and adolescent, learning disability and national autism inpatient unit.  All trainees are allocated an Educational Supervisor who will provide career and pastoral support throughout core training, in addition to the named Clinical Supervisors for each placement.  We have a portfolio of well embedded training sessions that we regularly offer to all Core Trainees in communication skills, reflective practice and serious incidents. We are the only mental health trust in the region providing a growing portfolio for training via simulation which includes emergency scenarios in Psychiatry for CT1s and advanced complex scenarios appropriate for more senior core trainees. We have a very well established and evaluated CASC training programme, which includes mock CASCs and evening preparatory sessions that are supported by our consultants who are also RCPsych examiners and our own higher trainees. Psychotherapy training is well supported offering unique opportunities of Interpersonal Therapy (IPT), Psychodynamic psychotherapy and CBT to help achieve the competencies and widen training opportunities.

Specialty Training

We offer a variety of training posts in general adult, old age, child and adolescent, intellectual disability, forensic and psychotherapy.  Trainees have the opportunity to join a specialty specific forum for peer support and teaching.  We are one of the only few trusts within the country that have developed training in simulated mental health tribunals.   Our new expanded portfolio of simulation includes scenarios in advanced skills such as leadership, managing a difficult discharge ward meeting, supervising junior doctors and managing a busy out of hours shift. We offer a well organised residential event to support Higher Trainees applying for consultant posts and help prepare them with mock consultant interview.  Testament to the training offered is the positive career progression into consultants and high rates of retention within our trust. We closely integrate the newly transitioned consultants with the early years mentorship programme supported by senior consultants.

All trainees receive one hour of protected supervision with their named Clinical Supervisor each week.  Weekly postgraduate teaching is available in each locality for all doctors, supported by a fantastic group of dedicated College Tutors, and we strive to include all trainees to actively participate and present in these teachings.  We encourage and support trainees in supporting medical students, either one to one or small or large group opportunities. Time permitting, we also encourage all trainees to take up research, audit and other quality improvement projects these opportunities are supported by close partnership with the academic research department at RADs, the audit department and R&D department. We have dedicated speciality Tutors for Foundation, GP and Specialty Training, Psychotherapy, Child and ID, along with locality specific College Tutors.  Study leave is supported in line with the NHSE policy.

Simulation

We have a high-spec well established simulation department, with dedicated simulation rooms at St Nicholas Hospital, as well as mobile and VR equipment to reach all sites when required. We have dedicated simulation leads that support the department for both postgraduate and undergraduate teaching, and we are continually evaluating and developing our scenarios.

We have several running projects within the department currently, simulation evaluation, mental health review tribunal simulation evaluation, serious incident training programme, rota improvements and evaluation (training rota), handover evaluation, equality and diversity project and training, differential attainment in MRCPsych examinations, evaluating the career progression of trainees in CNTW, etc.

We support a variety of medical education trust doctor posts such as Teaching Fellows (with primary role of supporting undergraduate medical education) and Clinical Fellows (service support and special interest opportunities).

We have dedicated Medical Education offices and teaching spaces at St Nicholas Hospital, Hopewood Park and Carleton Clinic, with an admin support team in each location.

Join us and hope you enjoy our training as much as we do!

If you would like further information, please email [email protected]

View our latest vacancies here.