Improvement of Trainee Engagement With the Royal College of Psychiatrists (Trent Division)

AIMS: The Psychiatric Trainees Committee (PTC) is a national community of psychiatric trainees comprised of representatives from all College areas. Over our recent term, Dr Deepa Krishnan, Dr Kris Roberts and Dr Emma McPhail covered the Trent region. In addition to national roles, we were keen to encourage trainees to engage with the PTC to improve trainee advocacy in line with National PTC strategy. Engaged and supported trainees are vital for ensuring good standards of patient care, and for safeguarding the future of the workforce in terms of recruitment and retention, which further intersects with ongoing quality and provision of patient care. The agreed aims, which were agreed with the RCPsych Trent Executive Committee, were formulated in-line with the national PTC priorities for 2021–2022: 1,to enhance communication, visibility and reach of the RCPsych within trainees in the Trent region; and 2, being mindful of challenges around recruitment and retention in psychiatry training posts, to improve education and support for trainees. METHODS: Using quality improvement methodology, we hypothesised there to be two aspects to trainee engagement. These were conceptualised in two ways: emotional engagement (meaning feeling supported, valued, and promotion of well-being); and intellectual engagement (meaning cognitive stimulation, recognition, and access to opportunities to develop knowledge). A free, online trainee-specific conference, the first of its kind in the Trent Division, was agreed as an intervention to address trainee engagement across both domains. Because it was run “for trainees by trainees”, we were able to tailor the content to be specifically helpful and relevant to trainees. We were keen to offer a varied program within the broad domains affecting engagement and we were delighted to be able to secure an exciting line-up of speakers both from within the Trent region and from further afield. RESULTS: The conference proved so popular to sign up to that it had to be closed early. The conference gathered excellent feedback from participants, with 100% of trainees rating the conference overall as “good” or “excellent.” CONCLUSION: The Trent PTC hopes to run the conference again in the coming year, we hope it will become a regular fixture in the RCPsych Trent calendar, to ensure that trainees are kept at the heart of division planning. This project spearheaded by trainees for trainees to improve trainee engagement and support exemplifies collaborative leadership.