Core trainees

We are part of the North East London (Bart’s and the Royal London) Specialty Psychiatry Training Scheme. The two Trusts in our scheme are North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) and East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT).

NELFT offers CT posts in both inpatient and community adult psychiatry, as well as Older Adult, CAMHS, LD and specialties including Perinatal, Early Intervention, Home Treatment Team, and Liaison psychiatry.

The scheme covers a large diverse population and is geographically more compact than some other London training schemes. Core training posts in NELFT are based in one of the four boroughs of: Waltham Forest, Redbridge, Barking & Dagenham and Havering. We are well served by the Central and District Lines, TfL rail and Overground. The Trust has a focus on agile working and all trainees are provided laptops with ability to work from home or other community sites.

NELFT have links with a number of academic institutions including University College London, Queen Mary University and Bart’s and The London School of Medicine. Trainees have close relationships with the medical education and management team.

We have a well-attended and active Junior Doctors Forum (rated as the best in the country by our BMA rep) and Local Negotiating Committee.

Clinical Supervision

This is provided on a weekly basis with your consultant to discuss any clinical issues or training needs you require. You will need to come prepared with areas you want to develop, cases which you want to understand more fully or even for workplace-based assessments (WPBA).

Teaching and Exam Preparation

You will have protected weekly Wednesday afternoon teaching. The first Wednesday of the month will be at Barts Hospital, and the rest at either the Jane Atkinson Health & Wellbeing Centre in Waltham Forest, or a venue within Redbridge. We quickly adapted to online teaching and at the moment these are attended remotely.

As part of your teaching, you will have the opportunity to deliver either a case presentation or a journal club presentation, and to attend Balint group (weekly). There is also a fortnightly on call club.

The MRCPsych course for Papers A and B will run weekly for all core trainees. For CASC, we offer a structured teaching programme in the months leading up to the exam, as well as a mock CASC which offers practice of stations with the emphasis on feedback on performance.

The trust medical education department also provides a wide range of simulation training which you can be involved with.

On calls

The trust operates three resident on call rotas, covering Goodmayes Hospital, King George’s and Queen’s, Woodbury and Whipps Cross. During a 6 month post you will spend 3 months each on two of these rotas and will be well supported by an on call SPR and Consultant. Each on call site has a designated resting facility.

We cover both adults and CAMHS patients out of hours.

Teaching Opportunities

The trust provides placements for 2^nd and 4^th year students from QMUL Barts & The London and Physician Associate students from Queen Mary’s. You will have the opportunity to provide teaching sessions to students placed within your team. There is also the opportunity to provide teaching sessions to Foundation year trainees based at NELFT as well as help facilitating simulation trainings ran by the Med Ed Department.

Psychotherapy and ECT

You will be offered the opportunity to take on a short case and a long case with supervision during your core training. The Trust also has an ECT rota therefore you will have access to all opportunities to complete all the necessary requirements for ARCP.

Overall

Our most recent trainee feedback highlighted that we have supportive seniors and colleagues, and that trainees’ voices are being listened to. There are plenty of subspecialties to choose from to make your training varied as well as teaching and leadership opportunities.

We also recently upgraded our on-call rooms with coffee machines and massage chairs.

We are a friendly and proactive group of trainees who enjoy meeting and supporting each other.

We are looking forward to meeting you in NELFT.

For more information, please contact our Medical Education department at MedicalEducation@nelft.nhs.uk