The shortage of consultant psychiatrists has been recognised for some time and in recent years the National Health Service (NHS) has recruited consultants from developing countries. A survey of vacancies by the Department of Health in March 2004 reported that 9.6% of consultant psychiatry posts needed to be filled in England and Wales. The NHS Plan envisaged reform of mental healthcare services by investment in facilities, patient empowerment, reduction of waiting times and determining clinical priorities (Department of Health, 2000) and accepted that the Department of Health could achieve this through its strategy of international recruitment (Department of Health, 2002). Two recruitment campaigns were initiated: Global Recruitment in September 2001 and the International Fellowship Programme in January 2002. A robust process of selection and appointment was set up to ensure that the recruited consultants:. possessed the necessary skills and competency levels to provide the highest quality of clinical care. were able to provide adequate training and supervision to the members of the multidisciplinary team. were able to communicate effectively with patients and other healthcare professionals. possessed all the attributes outlined in the General Medical Council's good medical practice guidelines.

This article is aimed at organisers of courses for the Royal College of Psychiatrists' membership examinations (MRCPsych) and College tutors preparing trainees for the MRCPsych. Running revision courses requires planning and a good deal of work but should be possible for most MRCPsych preparation courses. The theoretical background of assessments is explained. An overview of the type of examination used in the MRCPsych is provided and advice as to how trainees can best prepare for them given. Advice is given on the recruitment and retention of examiners for mock clinical exams, how to deal with simulated patients and what equipment is useful to buy for the use of trainees. We also explain how trainees can practice for the written papers and how feedback is best given to them. The new MRCPsych formal examination and workplace-based assessment programme are also discussed.

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Nowadays mental health is being fundamental concern to human being, while work is an integral part of modern life. Mental health is an important psychological attribute that plays a determining role in increasing the performance of employees and reducing rate of absenteeism, tardiness, and turnover of employees in the organisations. Our aim was to explore the psychometric properties of the newly developed questionnaire related to mental health. The items were framed with help of the previously available tools and interaction with sampling unit. Initially, 56 items were constructed related to the emotional, psychological and social well-being, eliminating jargons and complex terms defining the dimensions and its underlying statements so that newly developed questionnaire could be used in variety of workplace settings and items were framed to fit the manager’s context. Only 42 items were retained on the basis of experts’ maximum agreement and this 42-item questionnaire was distributed to participants to take their responses. The sample comprises of 250 managers of first level working in different units of Coal India Limited. The results of reliability analysis indicate that Cronbach’s alpha = .896 after deleting the 15 items from the questionnaire due to poor corrected item total correlation, less loadings and cross loadings in exploratory factor analysis. The reliability statistics fit the optimal level of Nunnally’s criteria and statistically acceptable for newly developed questionnaire. Results of the exploratory factor analysis indicate that these 27 items are loaded on three factors and these three factors explain 42.623% of total variance in mental health. This questionnaire will be useful for assessment of mental health of managerial personnel.