Abstract
As the newly appointed CEO of the College, I am delighted to have this opportunity to communicate with College Fellows, Affiliates and Trainees.
I have now been with the College for a month and have had the opportunity to work closely with the College Executive Officers and Secretariat staff. Before commencing in the role I also had opportunity to attend the Hobart Congress and meet many Fellows and staff from all of the Branches across Australia and New Zealand. These initial introductions and experiences have enabled me to identify a number of priority areas with the College President and Executive Officer team.
As a first priority, we have commenced an organisational review focussed on the clarification and improvement of roles, responsibilities and systems at our Melbourne head office. The key intent is one of service and quality improvement. The review is being assisted by Mr Phil Robinson of Human Resource Corporate Contracts. Phil has many years experience in both human resource and industrial relations matters.
Over the past few years, the College has grown considerably and is now facing some major challenges such as the implementation of the new training regulations, the creation of a health policy function and the need to prepare the College for accreditation of its training program by the Australian Medical Council. It is timely, therefore, to review the current structure, relationships and systems at our Melbourne office and to ensure that they designed in the best way to achieve what is needed for the future. It is also essential that we ensure that the Melbourne office is designed in the best way possible to support and compliment the work being done in the regional Branches.
In the first instance, this review is focussed on the functioning of our Melbourne office. While the review is focussed on relationships, roles and systems in the Melbourne office/Secretariat, I am very clear that the Melbourne office is only one part of our organisation and its interaction with the Branches is very important. All Branch staff have been fully briefed regarding the review and I have arranged for the senior staff representative from each Branch to visit with us here in Melbourne on Tuesday 22 July with a view to hearing their views about how we can improve systems and functions between the binational and Branch offices. The invitation for input has also been extended to all members of General Council.
As highlighted earlier, implementation of the new training regulations, creation of a heath policy function and the need to prepare the College for accreditation of its training program are key challenges on the horizon.
A great deal of work is occurring in readiness for the implementation of the new training regulations. We are currently working with the various subcommittees to finalise the new written examinations, the objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) and the observed clinical interview (OCI). A trial run of the OSCE process is scheduled to occur over the weekend of 2–3 July 2003.
The Australian Medical Council accreditation process has been scheduled for 2005 with the working party set to meet in late August. In accordance with the General Council recommendation, we have invited the various committee chairs to call for expressions of interest and identify a nominated representative to sit on the working party.
The desire for the College to have a much more proactive role in influencing mental health policy and the context of mental health practice in both Australia and New Zealand is reflected in the General Council decision to establish a formal policy position within the College secretariat. This position is currently being scoped and will be implemented as part of the organisational review recommendations.
Interaction with trainee psychiatrists is also an important priority and already I have had the pleasure of meeting with representatives of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatrists in Training (ANZAPT). As a starting point for our work together, we have highlighted issues associated with women in training and the appointment of an ombudsman for trainees.
Clearly, the coming months will be busy ones. I look forward to working very closely with Fellows, Affiliates and Trainees over this time as we strive to meet the challenges ahead.