PCS News January 2016
CPD Meetings
HOT TOPICS IN PSYCHIATRY – a series of monthly evening CPD meetings – 2 CPD credits
Next Hot Topics meeting is Thursday 11th February in the Ashling Hotel from 6.30 – 8.30pm. The focus for the evening is Trauma, with Dr Brian Fitzmaurice (HSE & TCD) presenting on The Psychological Impacts of Trauma and their Treatment, and Dr Michael Duffy (QUB) speaking on Delivering Trauma Focused CBT. The full list of dates, topics and speakers can be viewed on the Meeting & Events list on www.irishpsychiatry.ie where members can also book online.
Making HOT TOPICS available to the regions
With the help of college members outside of Dublin, we would like to run further Hot Topics meetings in regional locations. If you can organise a venue and speakers locally, please contact our office and we’ll happily do the rest.
HOT TOPICS ON MOODLE
Recorded Hot Topics presentations have been edited and packaged for delayed online access via the college’s Moodle platform. We’ll soon be letting you know the details of how you can access the presentations, and how you can accrue CPD for viewing them and completing MCQs. If you would like to work with us to develop MCQs for recorded presentations, please contact Lorna or Louise in the PCS office.
Thanks to all our Hot Topics speakers – the quality of presentation and content continues to be fantastic and we are very grateful to you for your time.
Other CPD EDUCATIONAL EVENTS being organised by the PCS Department – full details soon
– Anthropology in Psychiatry – 1 hour presentation at AGM by Dr BethAnn Roch – Fri 4th March, Dublin
– PCS Workshop (1 hour) – Thursday 7th April at Spring Conference, Carton House, Kildare.
– Managing Health Anxiety in patients full day workshop with Prof Peter & Dr Helen Tyrer
* Friday 27th May, Dublin venue to be confirmed.
Medical Council to follow up with registered doctors NOT enrolled on a PCS
The Medical Council has asked all Training Bodies to provide them with the names and MCRNs of all doctors who, at end April 2016, are enrolled in a PCS. The Medical Council wants this information to reconcile with its own registration lists, so that it can identify doctors on its registers who are not enrolled on a PCS. The Medical Council will then contact those doctors.
Under our agreement with the Medical Council to operate the PCS on its behalf, we are obliged to provide the information as requested. Confidentiality of this information will be safeguarded by the Medical Council. No further action will ensue for those enrolled doctors whose names and MCRNs are provided. No information is being sought as to individual named doctors’ levels of participation or accrual of credits.
If you are unsure as to your enrolment status in our PCS, please contact Mona, Louise or Lorna in the PCS office today. Please note; if your 2015/16 PCS annual fee remains unpaid, your CPD diary will have been locked and you are not currently enrolled in the PCS.
Online CPD Diaries – locked where 2015/16 PCS fees are unpaid
If you have not already done so, please pay this year’s annual PCS fee. Unpaid fees mean that:
– you can no longer access your online CPD diary,
– you won’t be issued with your Statement of Participation in a Professional Competence Scheme for 2015/16, and
– you are not enrolled in this PCS.
Medical Council Patient Feedback (PF) Pilot
We have had a great response to the information we emailed out on the forthcoming Medical Council Patient Feedback pilot. The Medical Council have been informed we have psychiatry names and contacts for the pilot and we anticipate they will request the details from us very soon. Participants will then be contacted with further details of the pilot.
CpsychI Verification Process on the 2014/15 PCS year
We will shortly be contacting the psychiatrists selected for our annual Verification Process (on the 2014/15 PCS year). The Verification Process asks the selected doctors to provide evidence of the credits and clinical audit that they logged during the year in question.
We are obliged to conduct an annual verification process as part of our arrangement with the Medical Council to operate the Professional Competence Scheme for psychiatrists.
Three months to PCS Year-End: Update your online CPD Diary now!
Hard to believe but there are just three months left before the end of this 2015/16 PCS year!
If you take the time to update your online CPD Diary now, you’ll have a clear picture of any further CPD credits you need to accrue to meet the minimum annual requirements of the PCS. You can then plan the appropriate CPD activities you might undertake in the coming three months.
**Don’t forget to confirm Clinical Audit in your diary **
– Check the college’s Meeting & Events List on www.irishpsychiatry.ie for details of forthcoming meetings and courses approved for External CPD.
– Remember you can do some online CPD on approved websites to accrue External and Internal credits. If you attend any meeting approved for External CPD by another Irish Postgraduate Medical Training Body or the RCPsych, their CPD approval is recognised by us.
– Ensure you have evidence for the CPD credits you log in your diary. An External CPD certificate for every claim of External CPD credits; ensure you get an Internal CPD summary or certificate at the end of the PCS year from academic organisers or Peer Review Group co-ordinators; we recommend some reflective notes (not mandatory) for personal learning CPD credits claimed; countersigned logs of weekly supervision you’ve carried out; confirmation of examining you have done.
Noting Maternity Leave / certified Sick Leave >3 mths
The Medical Council recognises that periods of certified leave such as maternity leave or sick leave longer than 3 months can result in a doctor not being able to maintain their professional competence over that period. Where a doctor has had a period of certified maternity or sick leave greater than 3 months, with minimum targets not being achieved in one year, the Medical Council will take into account the average accrual of credits over a 5 year period if they are reviewing that doctor’s PCS details.
Doctors who wish these circumstances to be (1) noted on their annual Statement of Participation in a Professional Competence Scheme and (2) taken into account in the event of the Medical Council reviewing their PCS details, should:
(a) email or write to the college’s PCS Department, marking correspondence Private & Confidential
(b) include the nature of the extenuating circumstance (i.e. sick leave, maternity leave)
(c) include the (estimated) dates of the period of certified leave
(d) do not send our PCS Department documentation, certification, sick notes etc. Keep them with your CPD files.
We will note the information confidentially on our Professional Competence files. An annotation will be made on the relevant year on the doctor’s Statement of Participation in a Professional Competence Scheme, with the text “Period of certified absence >3 months reported”.
This updated guidance applies from the current PCS year onwards. The Medical Council has published guidance on its website.