The Surrey and Borders' Medical Education Psychiatry Training Programme boasts a team of enthusiastic trainers; each trainee will receive one hour of protected supervision with their nominated Educational/Clinical Supervisor each week. There is also an active regional postgraduate teaching programme at which attendance is mandatory.

Educational Supervision

All junior doctors will have an educational supervisor whose role is to ensure the overall progress of the trainee through training across a number of placements.

The educational supervisor should:

• Ensure that the programme is appropriate to the doctor’s needs
• Support doctors by reviewing their learning needs in the light of achieved goals
• Carry out and/or collate assessments from clinical supervisors, trainers and other assessors
• Review the doctor’s learning portfolio
• Support the doctor through any difficulty
• Show principled professional practice
• Give career advice and support as required

Clinical Supervision

The aim of clinical supervision is to ensure that the trainee is safe to carry out the clinical work expected of them within the department. A clinical supervisor will usually be the consultant that a doctor is directly responsible to for their clinical work, and there will be frequent contact with them. For some rotations, the clinical supervisor and the educational supervisor will be the same person and it is important that he/she understands the different roles. The clinical supervisor:

• Is responsible for monitoring, supporting and assessing the trainee’s day to day clinical and professional work
• Must offer a level of supervision of clinical activity appropriate to the competence and experience of the individual trainee
• May delegate aspects of supervision to colleagues with appropriate training and experience
• Remains responsible and accountable for the care of the patient and the actions of the doctor in training.

Trainee posts are available in a variety of specialties, including Working Age Adult Mental Health, Older Age Adult Mental Health, Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Learning Disability, Drug and Alcohol, Rehabilitation, Assertive Outreach, Home Treatment, Eating Disorders, Psychiatric Intensive Care, Liaison Psychiatry and Psychotherapy.

Consultants, trainees and other grades are all active participants in our training programmes. 

The teaching sessions comprise of: 

• Academic seminars e.g. external speakers and case presentations covering a variety of topics
• Specialist teaching sessions (Journal Club) run by higher trainees or core trainees 
• Balint group  

All Trainees should present at the academic seminar during their placement and a timetable for this will be given to you at your local Inductions. This is a valuable educational resource.

Teaching programmes are held every Friday at the following sites:

South West Surrey (Farnham Road Hospital, Farnham Road, Guildford)

  
North West Surrey (Abraham Cowley Unit, St Peter's Hospital, Chertsey)

East & Mid Surrey (Learning & Development Suite, West Park, Epsom)

“I’ve really enjoyed my time in psychiatry; I’ve worked on the wards and have had my own clinics, both of which have been great learning experiences.

"I’ve felt well-supported by my supervising consultants, and by the on-call team. This has been further improved by the best academic teaching programme I’ve entered during my time as a doctor.

"The weekly protected teaching is a great opportunity to learn from peers and senior colleagues and to gain valuable experience in delivering presentations to a range of clinical staff, right through from FY1s to consultants”

Quote from a GPST2 Trainee

In line with Health Education Kent Surrey Sussex and Trust strategy, the importance of research skills are emphasised to all medical trainees. Each year apart from sessions during the academic programme, we hold an annual Trust-wide Research Day, aimed at medical trainees of all grades.

It is open to all trainees (Foundation, GP, Core and HST) and is comprehensively advertised at the induction and subsequent PGME events to ensure maximum awareness.

The day is split between a plenary session that focuses on the importance of research in medicine, research skills and Trust research direction, which is delivered by consultants and the Trust's Director of Development and Innovation, and a poster presentation and award session. All posters are judged by a panel of consultants for quality of content, relevance and clarity. The top past honours have been awarded to FY, GP and psychiatry posts.

The feedback from the attendees is always very positive, providing a steer for our future research events.

Our library and knowledge services are available to all staff, medical trainees and students; we are experts in finding evidence-based information to help you study and work. You can access services in person or by registering with one of the library services in Surrey.

We provide:

• Literature searches
• Electronic journals
• OpenAthens accounts
• Training
• Evidence updates sent by email
• PsychBOOKS - a collection of mental health e-books

N.B. Other books are available within individual libraries

Use the links below to access your nearest library service. Alternatively, eMail queries to sph.library@asph.nhs.uk.

• Ashford & St Peter's Hospital
• East Surrey Hospital
• Frimley Park Hospital
• Royal Surrey Hospital

Read the job descriptions of our Trainee Doctors in Psychiatry.

Who is eligible for SuppoRRT?
If you’re a trainee on a Training Programme, or have been allocated a National Training Number (NTN) for an upcoming scheme, and you’re returning to training following a break of at least 3 months, then you’re eligible! Examples can include coming back from: Parental Leave, Sick Leave, Out Of Programme placements (e.g. OOPE, OOPR etc), working in non-training posts, and if you have been Shielding.

What is SuppoRTT about?
Returning to training after a long break can be a challenge for a many. Firstly, knowledge or skills may potentially fade with time when they’ve not been kept up, whilst new developments in clinical practice might have occurred in the interim. Even a small attenuation in knowledge or skills can sometimes impact on confidence, which is another reason why having some additional support around the time of return may be helpful. In addition, trainees can sometimes feel isolated or disconnected from their teams or peers whilst on a break. Finally, even after a trainee returns, the need for childcare or the legacy of an illness, for instance, may impact how a trainee prioritises and manages their work/life balance.

Supported Return to Training (“SuppoRTT”) is a Health Education England (HEE) initiative as part of the ‘Enhancing Junior Doctors Working Lives’ programme. It has been designed to enhance the experience of trainees, after a period of absence, so they can be transitioned back to clinical practise safely and confidently.

The SuppoRTT programme encompasses a range of additional opportunities to help provide support - the trainee can choose any number of them depending on their individual needs and circumstances.

Where can I find out more about SuppoRTT?
For more details, feel free to check out our SABP SuppoRTT Toolkit
 

Why go Less Than Full Time (LTFT)?

Trainees may prefer to work less-than-full-time for all sorts of reasons, professional and personal. Examples could include one of more of the following:

• Need to support/care for children, relatives or other dependents

• Health reasons
• Work/life balance
• Opportunity to engage in other activities outside of training
• Help with longer-term job sustainability, especially for those who prefer not to be full-time.
• To help improve morale and wellbeing, and to help prevent burnout.

Who can apply for LTFT training?

Any trainee can potentially apply. Requests to undertake LTFT training however aren’t guaranteed, and will depend on the capacity of the training programme, and potentially the associated clinical services. They are ultimately at the discretion of the postgraduate dean, who may also liaise with the Head of School. The COPMeD (Conference of Postgrad Medical Deans) prioritises requests into three categories (although these aren’t exhaustive, and other ‘well-founded’ reasons may be considered by the Postgraduate Dean in consultation with the GMC). Of these categories, Category 1 has priority over Category 2, which in turn has priority over Category 3.

Category 1 comprises the following, and once approved it last until the end of training unless you notify the TPD otherwise:

• disability, ill health, or ongoing medical procedures such as fertility treatment.
• responsibility for caring for children, or an ill/disabled partner, relative or other dependant.

Category 2 comprises unique opportunities for personal / professional development, and tends to be for a fixed-time period. Examples may include:

• training for major sporting events, or religious/pastoral roles.
• membership of a national committee
• continuing medical research
• further study, such as management, law, or fine arts.

Category 3 is a relatively new category, initially rolled-out for psychiatric training in August 2021, and then full implementation from August 2022. It is open to any trainee who chooses to be LTFT, and the initiative behind it stems from HEE’s work to Enhance Junior Doctors Working Lives.

For more information about LTFT, please feel free to read our SABP LTFT-training toolkit.

The Royal College of Psychiatry explain what psychiatry is, types of psychiatrists, why you should choose psychiatry and how you can become a psychiatrist.