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In previous research, personality and exposure to psychiatry were independently shown to shape medical students attitudes towards psychiatry (ATP). This paper aims to investigate the role of psychiatry placements and personality types on medical student attitudes towards psychiatry (ATP).

All medical students from four consecutive years at Cambridge University, UK were invited to take part in an online questionnaire including the ATP-30 Questionnaire and The Big Five Factor personality Inventory (BFI).

Students who had completed their psychiatry placement had more positive ATP than students who had not (t = −3.24, adjusted p = 0.004). However, this was not reflected in an increased self-reported likelihood of choosing psychiatry as a career (t = 0.28, adjusted p = 0.78). Higher agreeable personality scores were associated with both a higher willingness to take up psychiatry as a career (linear model estimate 0.06; p = 0.03), and more positive ATP (linear model estimate 0.14; p < 0.0001).

This work seems to confirm that exposure to psychiatry improves attitudes towards psychiatry. Agreeable personality traits were also associated with a higher willingness to take up psychiatry postgraduate training. These findings might help shape future campaigns to improve the profile of psychiatry training. Future research on this topic is needed to address whether improved ATP among medical students can longitudinally improve recruitment into post-graduate psychiatry training.

During the COVID-19 outbreak, clinical schools across the UK were forced to switch their learning from face-to-face to online platforms. This paper aims to describe the experiences of psychiatry teachers and medical students at Cambridge University of the online psychiatry case-based tutorials during the COVID-19 outbreak and the lessons learned from this implementation.

The authors conducted qualitative focus groups with students followed by in-depth individual interviews with students and teachers.

In a data-led systematic text condensation analysis, this study found seven themes: the COVID-19 context, the structure of the course, teachers’ educational ethos, beyond the (teaching) script, possibilities for learning or teaching reflective practice, attitudes to online learning and suggestions for future development. The authors then applied the normalisation process theory (NPT) as the theoretical frame of reference. This model has previously been applied to the implementation of telemedicine in psychiatry, to understand how new technology can become embedded in clinical care.

This study’s results show how the NPT model can be modified to support the delivery of medical education online, including reflective learning and practice as an iterative process at every stage of the implementation and delivery of the teaching.

Health policies in England highlight the need for child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) to embed new knowledge in practice, yet evidence remains scarce about the services’ ability to learn from the external environment. This paper aims to present a critical analysis of the CAMHS’ ability to implement new knowledge through the lens of absorptive capacity, an organisation’s ability to identify, assimilate and use new valuable knowledge.

Sixteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with staff from the CAMHS department of a mental health organisation in England to explore the services’ absorptive capacity.

Professionals were identified having an impact on the main absorptive capacity components in the following ways: professional background and perceived reliability of knowledge sources appeared to affect knowledge identification; informal communication was found to facilitate knowledge assimilation and exploitation; trust was found to enable knowledge exploitation, particularly between senior management and frontline professionals. At an organisational level, team meetings and internal reporting were identified as enablers to knowledge assimilation and exploitation, while organisational hierarchy and patient data management systems were identified as barriers to knowledge assimilation. No organisational processes were found regarding knowledge identification, indicating an imbalanced investment in the main components of absorptive capacity.

Investing in these underpinning factors of absorptive capacity can assist CAMHS with capitalising on new knowledge that is valuable to service provision.

This study offers novel insights into the learning ability of CAMHS through the lens of absorptive capacity.

This paper reports the outcome of a 2‐year research project that set out to provide a process map of the concept stage of building projects. From a literature review, comparison of current process maps, and through interviews and case study analyses, a tentative new framework for the concept stage was developed and tested. It comprises 12 activities in five phases. The framework formed the basis of a graphical method used to plot the activities of design teams in a series of workshops. This graphical method illustrates design iteration in a way which we believe has not been undertaken before, and the patterns it reveals are intuitively understood by design team members themselves, helping them reflect on their own design process. We have also constructed a prototype internet‐based decision support tool for the concept stage of design. This is intended to be inherently flexible and supportive of non‐linear routes through concept design, while also offering a structured approach, design tools to broaden the solution space or evaluate competing options, team management advice, and the recording of decision making. Initial testing of this tool showed it to be well‐received, although it was criticized for focusing too much on the gates between activities and too little on the issues and decisions within each activity.

Ethical concerns about the use of the Mental Health Act (MHA) have led to calls for developmental disorders to be removed from the list of mental disorders for which individuals can be detained. In parallel, there are long-standing concerns of ethnic disparity in the application of the MHA. Nonetheless, the impact of the intersections of developmental disorder diagnosis, adolescence and ethnicity on the application of the MHA is unknown. This study aims to explore ethnic differences in MHA sections and the factors accounting for this, in an adolescent inpatient developmental disorder service.

File reviews were conducted to explore differences in MHA status, as well as demographic, clinical and risk factors that may account for this, between 39 white British and ethnic minority adolescents detained to a specialist inpatient developmental disorder service.

Consistent with adult literature, adolescents of an ethnic minority were overrepresented in the sample and were significantly more likely to be detained on Part III or “forensic” sections of the MHA than White British counterparts, with five times greater risk. Analyses revealed no significant differences between ethnic minority and white British participants on demographic variables, clinical needs, risk behaviours, risk measures nor application of restrictive practices and safeguarding procedures.

National audits exploring patterns of detention under the MHA across adolescent developmental disorder populations need to include analysis of intersections to ensure that the MHA is used as a means of last resort and in an equitable manner.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first comprehensive exploration of the impact of ethnicity on detention patterns in ethnic minority and White British populations.

This paper identifies considerations for managing the risks of abuse during intimate and personal care for people with learning disabilities and complex needs. Drawing on insights gleaned from research involving interviews with staff, policies and procedures in specialist day and residential services, and the development of a staff training resource, the paper identifies a framework for adult protection practice in this critical area of support.

Informed consent, confidentiality, disclosure, policy and the wider consequences of HIV testing are issues explored in this paper concerning a man with learning disabilities who tested positive for HIV. The events and outcomes are summarised, with lessons identified for policy and practice in HIV risk management and adult protection in services for people with learning disabilities.