1.30 pm
Coffee and Registration
2.00 pm
Medicine and Psychiatry – strange bedfellows
Dr Shubulade (Lade) Smith CBE, Clinical Director (Forensic Services), Croydon Adult and Behavioural & Developmental Psychiatry Directorate, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
2.30 pm
‘Cynefin, a Sense of Place’, a National Public Education Programme to Ensure Young Peoples Voices Are at the Heart of Service Design
Professor Alka Ahuja MBE, Consultant Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist & National Clinical Lead, TEC Cymru; Visiting Professor, University of South Wales & Hon Professor Cardiff University, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board
Synopsis of talk:
‘Cynefin’ has many layers of meaning – it’s a Welsh noun with no direct equivalent in English. The word conjures a very personal ’sense of place’, belonging, familiarity, and relationship to the place of your birth or upbringing. It aims to develop a national and cultural programme of public education, co-produced with young people, that enables them to explore issues that matter to them; whilst ensuring that these issues are at the heart of decision making in the national parliament of Wales ‘Senedd’.
Through a series of design workshops and evaluation, a diverse programme of public education has been created by the Royal College of Psychiatrists Wales, Technology Enabled Care (TEC) Cymru, and co-produced with young people. The programme is delivered across different mediums, including topical school debates; YouTube videos of facilitated discussion on areas such as relationships, loneliness, finance, and body image. Further formal opportunities have been created for secondary school pupils in giving consideration for careers in mental health e.g. inception of a youth advisory group in Technology Enabled Care (TEC)Cymru, establishing of a mental health research award for sixth form students and a summer school programme.
Learning Objectives:
- How to engage young people and destigmatise mental health and related myths
- Providing a platform to ensure young people’s voices are central to designing services for themselves
- Influencing and informing government policy
3.00 pm
The Future of Psychiatry: return to sender?
Professor Swaran Singh, Professor of Social and Community Psychiatry, University of Warwick
Synopsis:
From once being a set of stigma-laden conditions, mental health, especially youth mental health, has become a key clinical, academic, and service priority in several parts of the developed world. This has partly been driven by the success of specialist services like Early Intervention in Psychosis in improving clinical outcomes in a cost-effective manner, and partly from emerging evidence of the differentially worse impact of the covid pandemic on young people’s mental health. Statements such as “one in four suffers from a mental illness” mask complex concepts involving the diagnosis, assessment, and management of mental disorders, with genuine concerns about the ever-widening ‘boundaries’ of mental ill-health.
Meanwhile the enormous potential of personalised and precise medicine, based on advances in genomics, proteomics and other biological ‘omics’, holds a seductive appeal for psychiatry, with research heavily focussed on brain scanning, genetics and other biological ‘markers’ of mental health. Undoubtedly many breakthroughs in psychiatric treatments will emerge from such advances. While we wait for such breakthroughs though, we need to consider another kind of personalised medicine: ‘personomics’, based on individual uniqueness in vulnerability and resilience.
This lecture will provide a brief overview of the successes and limitations of contemporary psychiatry, delineate how psychiatry, while primarily biomedical, strides several disciplines, which include the known, unknown, and “unknown unknown” domains. Psychiatry’s greatest challenge, and its most heady appeal, is to objectively study the subjective self. The lecture will show why biomedical psychiatric care seems ‘stuck’ and the unexpected areas where advances in our knowledge and understanding might occur.
3.30 pm
Coffee break
3.45 pm
Dementia – modernizing diagnosis
Dr Ross Dunne, Consultant Old Age Psychiatrist, Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust
Synopsis:
Dementia is a 1920s term, an umbrella term to describe a myriad of diseases underlying cognitive decline in later life. At least 30% of clinical disease diagnoses are wrong, however, and we need better tools to make more accurate and timely diagnoses in our patients. Over the past 10 years we have developed significant advances in the tools used for diagnosis, although the UK lags behind similar nations in their implementation. We will discuss the provision of specialist mental health services for those with the earliest, mildest forms of cognitive decline, as well as the ongoing research and future planning for service provision for the diseases underlying dementia.
4.15 pm
Psychiatry in the NHS – first stop, the GP
Dr Tanvir Alam, GP based in Clacton and Norwich, working as the Associate Medical Director for the North East Essex Alliance, former Clinical Director of PCN Clacton and Lead GP for Acute mental health services in Norfolk
Brief Synopsis of talk:
The synopsis of my talk will be on psychiatry in general practice - burden of mental health in the community, resources available, physical health of these patients and the future landscape.
4.45 pm
How can we prevent suicide: England’s new national strategy
Professor Sir Louis Appleby, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Manchester and Director of the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health, University of Manchester, Government advisor on suicide prevention
Brief Synopsis of talk:
A new national suicide prevention strategy is being published, the first since 2012. This lecture will set out renewed priorities and address key questions: who are the groups of greatest concern? what is the role of services? how can we address gaps in evidence?
Learning objectives:
- To understand current national suicide rates and trends.
- To be aware of high risk groups and other priorities for prevention.
- To consider how to contribute to the new national strategy.
5.15 pm
Coffee break
5.30 pm
Annual General Meeting of the Manchester Medical Society
5.45 pm
My fascination with psychiatry
Presidential Address of Professor J S Bamrah CBE, Consultant Psychiatrist, Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS FT; Honorary Reader, University of Manchester
Synopsis of talk:
This talk will take delegates through Professor Baamrah's early experiences which evoked his interest in Psychiatry, consolidated during my undergraduate and SHO postings. Hopefully,he will draw the audience closer to how fascinating psychiatry is as a field of practice, making them feel proud if they are in the field, or for those who are not, enlightening them sufficiently to make them aware of the necessity to understand that there is no health without mental health.
6.45 pm
Presidential Dinner of the Manchester Medical Society will be held in the ground floor restaurant, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, a 2 mins walk from the MANDEC. NO FURTHER BOOKINGS ARE BEING TAKEN FOR THE DINNER