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Manifesto

Coming from an underprivileged background in Mumbai, and becoming the first doctor in my community was a dream made possible by the aspiration and ambition that my parents instilled in me. This journey shaped my belief in confident, compassionate and aspirational medical leadership. That’s why I’m running for President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

 

Psychiatry is under siege. Demand for mental healthcare is rising rapidly in scale and complexity, while psychiatrists are working within increasingly overstretched and underfunded systems. We must move beyond parity of esteem and place psychiatry at the heart of healthcare – utilising our unique biopsychosocial and systemic expertise to deliver true person-centred care.

Core Priorities

Enhance the influence and impact of psychiatrists

Use the College’s influence to drive optimal patient outcomes

Champion prevention and public mental health

Ensure our workforce is sufficiently staffed, diverse and supported to thrive

Lead

cutting-edge innovation in Psychiatry

01
Enhance the influence and impact of psychiatrists

at team, organisational and policy levels, ensuring frontline expertise shapes service design and delivery.

What I have achieved:

  • As National Clinical Adviser , helped develop the Community Mental Health Framework  that is shaping community mental health transformation

  • Lobbied the government to secure the largest increase in the number of training places in psychiatry

  • Created Networks of Directors of Medical Education and of Core Program Directors to empower local and regional leadership

  • Chaired Physician Assistant Review, creating robust guidance for employers

Vision – As president:

  • Create bespoke medical leadership training programme for Psychiatrists

  • Liaise with every Health Care Provider (Trust) Board, to amplify medical voice,  supporting the local implementation of College guidance
    Develop College guidance on the structure and resourcing of medical management

  • Create a network of Trust Medical Advisory Committee chairs to amplify the medical voice on local boards

03
Champion prevention and public mental health

by promoting early life intervention, secondary and tertiary prevention across the life course.

What I have achieved:

  • Developed PMHL course

  • Introduced person centered care and public mental health related  outcomes  in core and higher training curricula

  • Created a job description for a Public Mental Health(PMH) specialist

  • Organized the first joint conference between RCPsych and Faculty of Public Health on Public Mental Health

Vision – As President:

  • Co-ordinate stakeholders such as Primary care, Public Health, Womens’ Services, Paediatrics along with secondary care Psychiatric services to create a Toolkit to help promote early life mental health at neighbourhood level

  • Support the implementation and dissemination of evidence-based secondary and tertiary prevention measures for e.g. smoking cessation, increased physical activity, nutrition and metformin to address poor physical health in severe mental illness.

  • To empower College Divisions to create mental health maps of health inequity that could be used to help local psychiatrists to influence local commissioners of care and policy leaders.

05
Lead cutting-edge innovation

 in applied research, digital technology and funding to improve psychiatrists’ working lives.

What I have achieved:

  •  Led the development of the Digital literacy Framework

  • Conceived and launched the Dean’s Grand Rounds which bridges the gap between evidence and practice

  • Data informed workforce planning pilot across the Midlands bringing commissioners of care, schools of psychiatry and universities to map the workforce pipeline to the needs of the local population

Vision – As President:

  • Use digital technology to reduce administrative tasks that take away clinician time from relational patient care

  • Enhance continuity of care in shared decision making through improved technology, and improved outcome measures.

  • Develop framework for College to engage with and influence commercial and research partners especially in digital, genomics and innovation tech.

  • Digital content creator accelerator programme to upskill wider range of psychiatrists in creating trusted content on digital platforms.

  • Work with financial and policy leaders to identify novel source of funding for e.g. social impact bonds.

02
Use the College’s influence to drive optimal patient outcomes

through safe, consistent implementation of evidence-based treatments like Clozapine, Lithium and ECT to narrow the mortality gap for patients with severe mental illness.

What I have achieved:

  • Created RCPsych Learn to link the colleges educational and training offer directly with patient care

  • Created an ecosystem of content across College platforms – journals, podcasts, e-learning and courses to optimise evidence-based learning

  • Reintroduced the long case to formative assessments aligning with renewed emphasis on formulation skills

  • Developed Lived Experience involvement in Teaching Toolkit

Vision – As President:

  • Leverage digital and implementation science to ensure quicker, safer and consistent access to evidence based and already funded treatments such as Clozapine, Lithium, ECT and CBT-for Insomnia.

  • Enhance College’s role as a trusted and reliable source of information in Psychiatry in the face of misinformation/mistrust about Psychiatry/Psychiatrists and our treatments.

  • Research and Development Leads’ network to support the commissioning and conducting of research relevant to local populations and developing local academic capacity

  • Translate academic evidence from our journals to make it more accessible through bite sized videos to build trust with public and busy clinicians.

04
Ensure our workforce is sufficiently staffed, diverse and supported to thrive.

Addressing discrimination and inequity to  ensure that psychiatrists at every career stage feel heard and empowered.

What I have achieved:

  •  As a Trustee of Doctors in Distress
    o   Developed national wellbeing strategy and developed pioneering Dr1:4 program to highlight the lived experience of doctors with mental illness
    o   Raised awareness of and funds for Doctors In Distress

  • Differential Attainment – over the past 2 decades helped create awareness of DA in the NHS, developed evidence based programmes to address DA, and have demonstrated improvement in DA at RCPsych that is now being lauded by the GMC as an example of good practice.

  • Developed guidance on helping doctors with neurodivergence thrive

  • SAS- created new recognition of trainers guidance enabling SAS doctors to be involved as supervisors in training; first SAS examiner appointed.

Vision – As President:

  • Formal review of the objectives of the College Centre for Quality Improvement, to pivot to focused implementation and improvement; aligning CCQI to CQC (Care Quality Commission)  and other regulators’ in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland’s standards to address the culture of fear associated with regulatory inspections

  • Lead as College on building consensus on how to make services safe to address knee-jerk responses to scapegoat or criminalize clinicians

  • Create flexible career paths especially for late career psychiatrists, by supporting leadership, education and medical management

  • Division led support for a) higher trainees into consultant roles and b) facilitating  early and midcareer psychiatrists’ professional and personal aspirations to align with organization and system level objectives.

  • Supporting the implementation of the Retention Charter specifically creating belonging for disadvantaged groups such as IMGs and SAS doctors.

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