Major changes are taking place in the way doctors are trained and assessed. A new curriculum, devised by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges on behalf of Modernising Medical Careers, will be implemented for current junior doctors as part of the foundation and specialist training programmes. Every junior doctor will be expected to have a ‘personal learning plan’ to guide professional development and assist appraisal, and to build a portfolio to document their experiences. This marks a shift from traditional summative (i.e. examinations-based) evaluation to the use of more formative methods based on experience and workplace assessment. It reflects greater emphasis on continuing professional development and life-long learning (Wilkinson et al, 2002).

Over the past decade, old age liaison psychiatry services have been developing across the UK. The driving force behind this has been the recognition of the inequity in service provision for people over the age of 65 with mental health problems in a general hospital setting. A postal survey of consultants in old age psychiatry in April 2002 showed that most respondents (71%) considered that the service they provided to older people in general hospitals was poor and needed to be improved (Holmes et al, 2002). Much work has been done to highlight this issue, and liaison psychiatry for older adults is gaining prominence. The national conference on liaison psychiatry for older people, which has been held in Leeds for the past 4 years, attracts large numbers of enthusiastic participants. The Department of Health (2006) document A New Ambition for Old Age specifically mentions the current poor standard of care that older people with mental health problems receive in a general hospital setting. The Royal College of Psychiatrists (2005) has produced guidelines for the development of liaison mental health services for older people.

The education and training of medical students and trainees is a key role of senior clinicians, and the General Medical Council states we ‘must develop the skills, attitudes and practices of a competent teacher’ (General Medical Council, 2005). The Royal College of Psychiatrists places the role of educator as a core competency for psychiatrists (Bhugra, 2005) and believes we should understand ‘the principles of education and use teaching methods appropriate to educational objectives' (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2004).

Psychotherapy training provision within psychiatry training schemes differs across the UK. In the light of the current changes in training structures, adjustments may be required in the way that psychotherapy training is delivered and assessed. This paper reports on the development, delivery and evaluation of a cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) training programme for psychiatric trainees within a training scheme with limited psychotherapy resources.

In 2002 Unfinished Business, a report and consultation paper by Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer for England, put forward proposals for the reform of the senior house officer (SHO) grade, including the formation of the new early years foundation posts (Donaldson, 2002). In 2004 Modernising Medical Careers – The Next Steps (Department of Health, 2004) outlined specialty and general practitioner (GP) training programmes building on the foundation programme. As a result all medical training will be changing to a competency-based model from August 2007. This will encompass run-through training from specialist training years 1 (ST1) to 6 (ST6). Some regions and specialties have been chosen as pilot sites for specialist training year 1 commencing August 2006.

Digitalisation of the world is a fast-growing reality and the world of medicine, or indeed psychiatry, has not been left behind. Internet and the World Wide Web revolutionised the way we access information, and the medical profession has taken full advantage of it. But now, podcasts are set to change the way information is delivered. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has already started its podcasts and seems to be at the forefront of this revolution in mass communication within the medical community.

The systematic involvement of service users (patients or clients; McGuire-Snieckus et al, 2003) and carers in an active educational role in psychiatric training is a relatively recent development. The National Service Framework for Mental Health states that ‘Service users and carers should be involved in planning, providing and evaluating training for all health care professionals' (Department of Health, 1999). The Royal College of Psychiatrists declared that from June 2005 all psychiatric trainees must have training from service users or carers. This is a sizeable shift away from traditional medical teaching, where patients have been involved only in a passive way, as the possessor of symptoms and signs, with teaching delivered by experienced clinicians and academics. The reasons behind these changes have been discussed frequently in recent medical literature (Livingston & Cooper, 2004). The primary arguments for this initiative are that service users have a unique understanding of their illness and are best placed to judge trainees on their empathy and communication skills. Increasingly, service users' views are being taken into account in training and examination of medical students and doctors (Vijayakrishnan et al, 2006).