Psychiatry of Learning disabilities

Training Programme Director: Dr Amy Uchendu

The Maudsley Higher Training Scheme in psychiatry of learning disabilities has 5 posts for higher training, rotating between South London and Maudsley and Oxleas NHS Foundation Trusts. Higher trainees spend one year in each of three different clinical placements. 
In addition trainees are given two sessions per week for special interest which can be clinical, research, management or special projects. These have learning objectives clearly identified and agreed. Examples include: neuropsychiatry, offending and learning disabilities, child and adolescent psychiatry, adult ADHD, autistic spectrum disorder, low secure LD inpatient, specialist inpatient assessment and treatment services. 

Management/leadership projects trainees have undertaken recently include: large scale clinical audits using CRIS, Mental Health clustering tool pilot, productive community teams.
Research projects undertaken in the past year have included: Delphi consultation on service user perspectives, ethnicity and psychopharmacology, autism, epilepsy. 

Trainees are also encouraged to contribute to our teaching portfolio as part of the Estia (www.estiacentre.org), moderate at our monthly multi-disciplinary academic teaching mornings and quality assure teaching programmes for community support workers.  Currently our higher trainees have implemented a clinical skills teaching session for core trainees on placement with us, running a weekly session over 12 weeks every 6 months.

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In the past year our trainees have led on organisation of national conferences – on behalf of the RCPsych and the London Deanery; helped develop the website for the Faculty and provided the national trainee representative for the Royal College.

There are regular trainer-trainee meetings to discuss and update on training issues and to share knowledge and practice.  The same educational supervisor oversees the training experience across the three years.