Sally Pidd has worked as a general adult psychiatrist in the Morecambe Bay area for 20 years, and is currently based in a community mental health team in Morecambe (Victoria House, Thornton Road, Morecambe LA5 5NN, UK. E-mail: sally.pidd{at}mbpct.nhs.uk). Her interest in workforce issues goes back many years and she is currently Deputy Registrar (Workforce) of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
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| Box 1 Recruitment into psychiatry Various strategies can be used to attract students and SHOs into psychiatry:
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The problem of adequate recruitment has been compounded over the past decade by difficulties in retaining qualified, experienced staff. This is a problem shared by most other disciplines within mental health and, indeed, throughout the NHS generally. It has led to the situation that the Governments bold plans for reforming mental health services by investing in new teams, new types of worker and steady consultant expansion may not be fully achieved because of workforce shortages. The NHS Plan for England and Wales (Department of Health, 2000) and the National Service Frameworks covering mental health (Department of Health, 1999) and older people (Department of Health, 2001c) all have had at their core an increasing demand for a flexible, highly skilled workforce. At times, though, it seems a Herculean task to move from where we are now to this rosier picture of the future. This is despite the promises of considerable extra monies that accompanied these plans.
In this paper I explore the career pathway of psychiatrists from aspiring students to post-retirement doctors, looking at the issues at each of what Brockington & Mumford (2002), in a comprehensive paper on recruitment into psychiatry, call nodal points. Finding possible solutions at these points should over time produce the expanded and well-maintained workforce required.
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The shortage of nurses within the NHS overall has been well documented (Finlayson et al, 2002). Thirty-four per cent of new graduate nurses, for example, never register to practise and within 1 year of graduation 10% are not working within the NHS. The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Healths (2000) review of recruitment and retention in mental health care highlighted that 85% of the NHS trusts surveyed were struggling to find and keep mental health nurses. High levels of emotional exhaustion were found in both hospital and community-based staff. In 1997, there was a 10% vacancy rate for occupational therapists and a failure to match the workforce demands with the output from training courses. However, there is a continuing shortage of posts for clinical psychologists in the NHS, despite a steady growth in their numbers: relatively unusually for a discipline, the demand for training places far outweighs the opportunities on offer. The picture for mental health staff as a whole is not positive and it can result in a cycle of frustration for both health care staff and service managers (Fig. 1
).
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Fig. 1 The cycle of staffing frustration. After Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health (2000), with permission.
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This problem is not confined to the UK. A brief trawl through the internet, searching on PSYCHIATRIC and WORKFORCE and SHORTAGES brought up over 1500 references from around the globe. If the president of the American Psychiatric Association (Eist, 1997) could express the view that the USA, probably with the highest number of psychiatrists per head of population in the world, could still not deliver the service needed across the country, we in the UK are likely to struggle to move up from a much lower base. For all these reasons, following the publication of the National Service Framework for Mental Health, the Department of Health created the Workforce Action Team to look at staffing implications across the board. The teams final report explored in great detail the work that needed to be done (Department of Health, 2001d).
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Until recently, the standard route into medical school in the UK was via good science qualifications, and the process was thought to be highly competitive. The situation is changing. McManus (2002) reported that the selection ratio, i.e. the number of applicants for each place, fell from 2.11 in 1995 to 1.55 in 2000. Fortunately, the author found indications that the trend may be reversing, as in 2002 there was a 13% increase in applicant numbers. With the rapid expansion in medical school places that will follow the opening of five new medical schools across the UK by 2005, many more people will need to be drawn into the potential pool of future doctors. The relative lack of male applicants (women now outnumber men on most courses) may have significant implications for the numbers of doctors likely to be active in the workforce over their longer-term careers. Introducing government-initiated graduate-entry fast-track programmes will change the profile of new doctors over time. According to the Universities and Colleges Admission Service, out of 14 000 applicants to study medicine in 2003, nearly 3000 were for these fast-track programmes, and the growing problem of student debt does not appear to have been a deterrent.
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Selling the merits of flexible, family-friendly working practices within the speciality is important. Doing so might also encourage both women and men who want a life outside medicine as well as job satisfaction within it to consider psychiatry as the best fit for a holistic practice that is both challenging and rewarding. Variations of these approaches are being adopted in countries such as Canada and Australia, and we can learn from others experiences (Weintraub et al, 1999).
Over 20 years ago a symposium was run by the Association of Psychiatrists in Training entitled Who puts medical students off psychiatry? Many of its findings are still applicable today and it should be seen as the responsibility of the whole profession to attract the brightest and best, kindle their interest and convert them into future psychiatric colleagues (Creed, 1979).
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The findings of these studies are similar. Doctors chose to come into psychiatry because of its holistic emphasis, multi-disciplinary patterns of working and, crucially, their enjoyment of their undergraduate experience. They stayed on for similar reasons. Those disenchanted with the speciality cited as a major concern the quality of the relationship between consultant and trainee; poor-quality supervision was also a great deterrent. Those failing to progress to higher training were critical of the level of support given in examination preparation, and in some areas of the country SHOs felt that there was inequitable access to speciality posts within rotations.
Senior house officers were unhappy about the depressing conditions in which they work and their patients live. The patient-mix on acute admission wards, with high numbers of challenging patients and inadequate staffing, made some feel unsafe. Again in some areas of the country, they felt that they had unmanageable case-loads or were expected mainly to act as clerks on in-patient units.
Overall, though, it seems that their observation of low morale in their consultants and in other staff might be a significant disincentive to progressing in psychiatry.
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Box 2 Key messages from SHOs about training
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Many in the profession feel that an expansion of the SHO grade in psychiatry is essential. However, this is unlikely to happen, mainly because of the high proportion of overseas graduates already in SHO posts across all specialities. Better use, therefore, needs to be made of existing posts, using a higher proportion for trainees intending to become psychiatrists and giving them a better deal once in post.
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High numbers of trainees opting for dual training leads to longer overall training times and also difficulty in predicting their eventual speciality choice. The rise in the number of flexible trainees (those on flexible training programmes), especially in child and adolescent posts, and the high proportion of women in this and other specialities can lead to very extended training times. The European Union requirement for exact pro rata training times can leave flexible SpRs training too long to achieve their Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training (CCST) and this may be off-putting for them.
The final issue is that there is a growing trend for doctors who have obtained College membership to opt for non-consultant career grade (NCCG) posts rather than continue into higher training. This reduces further the pool of future consultants, although it has a positive effect in the workforce elsewhere.
Solutions
Possible solutions at this point in the career ladder include mentoring of SHOs through into higher training by good role models. While in post, good peer group support mechanisms are valuable, with time given for all SpRs to meet regularly. Making the annual review process (the record in training assessment RITA) a positive, encouraging and supportive experience, as well as highlighting further training needs, should help. Mechanisms are needed to enable NCCG doctors back onto the training ladder at whatever stage they left it. However, the single most important step is probably to make consultant posts look attractive and do-able. Currently, SpRs see at close quarters how far from that many of their educational supervisors posts are. They are intelligent enough to see through overoptimistic consultant job descriptions and can take their time over choosing jobs. They also can, and do, move on from consultant posts that prove unmanageable, so wasting recruitment effort and increasing the lack of service continuity. Trusts need to take more care in drawing up honest, workable job descriptions (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2003).
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This issue of consultant roles and working styles has been explored in studies in which existing consultants have been interviewed and the types of posts that lead to higher job satisfaction have been examined (e.g. Kennedy & Griffiths, 2000). The development of new teams such as assertive outreach, crisis resolution and early intervention in psychosis may give jaded psychiatrists an opportunity to move into new spheres in later stages of their career. Anecdotal evidence gathered from contributors to a discussion on this topic at the Colleges Faculty of General Adult Psychiatrists annual meeting in 2002 suggests that, in some areas, this has perhaps led to difficulty in filling key posts for sector psychiatrists within community mental health teams, meant to be the foundation of services.
The persistent high vacancy rates in some areas have led to a dependence on locums, who can command very high salaries, have varying levels of experience and may not take on all the work associated with substantive posts. This can lead to disquiet and lower morale among existing consultants and has led to a worrying trend of CCST holders delaying the move into consultant posts by sampling jobs as locums first. This may be useful and lucrative for them, but it does not help in the longer-term filling of established or new posts.
Solutions
In the short term, there are posts that need to be filled. Initiatives to recruit from overseas are ongoing. Despite efforts to concentrate these recruitment drives on and from countries thought to overproduce doctors, concerns about this approach include the fact that the doctors attracted are often from countries that need their skills more than the UK does, and this raises major ethical issues (ONeale, 2002). Once these doctors are in post, however, good mentoring will help to integrate them into services and if this means that these are then fully staffed it can alleviate some of the pressures illustrated in Fig. 1
.
Recent Department of Health initiatives apply to consultants as much as to other NHS staff. Improving Working Lives (Department of Health, 2001b) has the aim of providing well-managed flexible working environments that both support staff and respect their need for a balance between work and their home life. The NHS Childcare Strategy aims to increase the number of on-site nurseries for the very young and before-school and after-school clubs for school-age children. Flexible Career Schemes (introduced at the end of 2002) is a fully funded programme allowing doctors to take a break from full-time working while retaining their clinical skills (Department of Health, 2003). The Changing Workforce Programme is encouraging the development of new roles and ways of working for consultants (Department of Health, 2001a).
Making sure that doctors are aware of all these possibilities at every stage in their careers may make the best use of fully trained doctors in a way that matches both their age and family commitments (Paice, 2001).
Case study one flexible working life
Dr W came to medicine late via an Arts degree. She was in her 30s before starting as a clinical assistant in psychiatry. She then worked as a part-time trainee, eventually passing MRCPsych Part II by her early 40s. She gained a wide variety of experience through less-formal training, including time as a senior registrar en route to a part-time consultant post in general adult psychiatry at the age of 47.
She remained part time, increasing her sessions and eventually moving wholly into old age work. She developed other special interests and by 65 felt she still had enough enthusiasm to contribute to services. Her replacement wanted to work fewer sessions so she made up the rest, continuing with a memory clinic she had established. She also offered mentoring to a younger colleague returning from extended sick leave. She gave up the increasingly onerous on-call duties and is now able to enjoy the work she is doing, is not bored and her skills are being used.
Consultant retention
It is essential that trusts that wish to retain the doctors they have should value their consultants, providing them with good working conditions and offering sabbatical leave when appropriate, as well as the possibility of training for new roles.
In a project led by Judy Curson, the Department of Healths Medical Workforce Review Team, supported by the statistics section of the Department of Health in England, has developed a computer model to simulate workforce requirements for every speciality. Running that model for psychiatry shows that the quickest way of bringing vacancy rates down would be to retain existing consultants for a few years longer, rather than increasing training grade numbers, which takes much longer to affect workforce expansion (J. Curson, personal communication, 2003).
New posts need to be do-able (and not just by the superhuman). Making sure that new posts are in line with the Colleges norms might help to achieve this (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2003). Existing posts may need to be reviewed to ensure that their holders are not left disadvantaged by old styles of working when new consultants have been able to negotiate better jobs. Untenable posts lead to premature retirement. Allowing consultants to vary their job plans according to their domestic commitments and their age would help to retain their skills and use them in new ways. Finally, generating a supportive, non-blaming management culture would help everyone. Recognition that risk assessment is not an exact science and that even the most competent can get it wrong at times would alleviate much of the pressure of day-to-day practice.
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Studs Terkel, in his classic book Working (Terkel, 1972), talks about how it should be:
Work as a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor, in short for a sort of life, rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.
Making positive changes at each stage of the career pathway will, hopefully, give the numbers and quality of doctors we need to make work that gives us all more than a sort of life and gives our patients the service they deserve.
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View this table: [in a new window] | MCQ answers |
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