CT3 Core Psychiatry Training Recruitment

Welcome to CT3 Core PsychiatryTraining Recruitment at the North Western Deanery for 2011

Recruitment Information | Recruitment Timetable | Programme Information | Employment Information

Last reviewed: 15th July 2013

Hospital sites for Core Psychiatry :

Please note that Psychiatry can be a community based specialty and this map may not feature absolutely everywhere you are expected to work.

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Core Psychiatry Programme details

Please note that if you apply and are accapted into the programme at CT3 level, you will enter 
the programme at the CT3 level so please ignore referemces to CT1 and CT2.

Last updated: October 2010

The core training programme in psychiatry is one of the largest Schools in the North Western Deanery, with up to 38 Specialist Training posts per year. The scheme is made up of an educational co-operative of Trusts across Greater Manchester, Lancashire Care and Cumbria Partnership. All the posts are well established training posts with experienced educational supervisors. All have been approved by PMETB for the training of psychiatrists, and all meet the curricular requirements set down by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. The training posts provide a comprehensive and educationally integrated training in psychiatry and its subspecialties, suitable for those attempting a career in psychiatry, and appropriate to preparation for the MRCPsych examination and beyond. All the educational supervisors have been trained as educational supervisors, and all are trained in carrying out Work Place Based Assessments.

General Description of Rotation

Trainees will be able to gain experience in a broad range of settings and subspecialties during their first three years of Core Training. All CT1 trainees will complete six month placements in old age and general adult psychiatry, whereas CT2 posts will generally include a developmental post such as child and adolescent psychiatry or learning disability psychiatry, and a further general adult post. In CT3, there will be opportunities for further adult subspecialties, including intensive care, assertive outreach, crisis resolution, substance misuse, psychotherapy and forensic psychiatry.

Applications are to the North Western Deanery as a whole, but training posts are broadly divided in to the Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cumbria schemes. Individual preferences are taken into consideration where possible. The posts across the Deanery are organised as follows:

1. Greater Manchester scheme

All Mental Health hospitals in Greater Manchester participate in this scheme. The hospitals include: Stepping Hill Hospital (Stockport), Macclesfield, Wythenshawe, Manchester Royal Infirmary, Tameside, Oldham, Bury, Rochdale and North Manchester, Prestwich, Bolton, Salford and Trafford. Trainees on this scheme will need to move between sites during the 1 year programme ( CT3) in order to experience the full range of clinical opportunities .

2. Lancashire Care scheme

This includes hospitals in Lancaster, Blackpool, Chorley, Preston, Calderstones, Leigh, Blackburn and Burnley. The scheme is organised into tracks, allowing the trainees to access a broad range of educational opportunities from CT1 to CT3 within a limited geographical area. All tracks in Lancashire Care have at least one placement in Preston. A fifth track is located around Lancaster with some posts in Cumbria.

3. Cumbria Partnership

This offers one track of six posts, taking the trainee from CT1 to CT3. Posts are in mainly in Carlisle with some posts in West Cumbria, and some in South Cumbria in Barrow and Kendal.

Educational Opportunities

The North Western Deanery uniquely offers trainees access to an electronic portfolio, which integrates workplace based assessments with the required competencies, and allows trainees to track and demonstrate progress and areas that require further work.

All trainees will be allocated to an educational supervisor in each placement (typically their clinical supervisor) who will be responsible for ensuring that structured one to one meetings take place and that the trainees' personal development needs are agreed and followed up.

In addition to workplace supervision and learning, trainees will receive weekly supervision with their Educational Supervisor.

Supervisors will pay close attention to the particular learning needs of trainees, to support attainment of competencies appropriate to their stage of training.
A regional MRCPsych course is available to all trainees

In addition to the clinical teaching received while fulfilling work duties, there is a weekly in-house programme of post graduate education at each hospital during term time. This includes interview skills training, psychotherapy supervision, exam practice, presentation of relevant papers, audit, visiting speakers and case presentation. Most centres also offer teaching in critical appraisal and audit workshops.

Each centre provides psychotherapy training in accordance with college guidelines. This includes interview skills training with video feedback, introductory psychotherapy groups such as Balint groups, and subsequent opportunities in longer term psychotherapy or cognitive behavioural therapy with individual patients, supervised in multi disciplinary groups.

Research/Audit/Teaching

The North West is proud to have widespread academic research programmes, of national and international reputation. Psychiatry trainees have the opportunity of collaborating in research, and there are active Academic Clinical Fellow programmes for trainees considering an Academic Career.

Greater Manchester Research

There is a large academic department of psychiatry, based at the University of Manchester. There are a broad range of research opportunities, including community psychiatry, neuroscience, forensic psychiatry, old age psychiatry and several others.

Lancashire Care Research

There is an academic department of community psychiatry in Preston which provides trainees with an excellent opportunity to develop research interests. The Preston department's interests include liaison with primary care, forensic psychiatry, guidance-based psychiatry and assessment of needs for psychiatric care.

The North Western Deanery has developed additional programmes for trainees interested Medical Leadership and Medical Education. Trainees in psychiatry have been particularly successful in applying for the Leadership programme

Understanding of, and participation in clinical audit is strongly encouraged. Trainees are able to access training and experience in audit through the clinical governance network at each hospital and within each Trust, which co-ordinates the annual programme of audit activity and priorities.

All trainees in psychiatry will participate in the ARCP process every twelve months. This is educational review of the trainee with an emphasis on general educational progress as well as aspects of mandatory training. Each trainee will also undertake an annual appraisal as required by the Department of Health.