The Royal College of Psychiatrists' Winter Business Meeting

23 January 2007, 4.30 p.m., to be held at the Royal College of Psychiatrists following the meeting of Central Executive Committee. Chaired by the President, Professor Sheila Hollins.

Agenda

1. 1. To approve the minutes of the previous Winter Business Meeting held at the Royal College of Psychiatrists on 24 January 2006.

2. 2. Obituary.

3. 3. Election of Honorary Fellows.

Lord Denis Victor Carter

Lord Carter has had a distinguished career in the agricultural world for much of his life. He also has a firm interest in working for disabled people and in 1988 became executive producer of the weekly Link programme on ITV for people with disabilities. He was recently given the ePolitix Lifetime Achievement Award for work in the field of disability.

Lord Carter chaired the Joint Select Committee which scrutinised the Draft Mental Incapacity Bill. He contributed an outstanding knowledge and understanding of the issues and a willingness to explain how to make the most of the pre-legislative scrutiny process. This was invaluable in ensuring that the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ views were presented properly for consideration by the Committee. For the first time a number of people with a learning disability were given, and took, the opportunity to present oral evidence to the Committee. This was a valuable lesson for all those involved in the care of people with learning disability.

The majority of recommendations made by his Committee were incorporated into the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Those who followed the issue will know that there was some significant opposition to the Bill, owing to a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of some people as to its purpose, but Lord Carter steered its passage through Parliament with enormous expertise.

He chaired the Draft Disability Discrimination Bill Scrutiny Committee, again taking evidence from, among others, the College and witnesses with disability. Indeed, he was so insistent upon this that he left Parliament to take evidence from a witness who was unable to travel to Westminster. Again his skill in steering this Bill through Parliament is evident from the fact that the majority of the Committee's recommendations, including those of direct importance to people with mental disorders (e.g. removing one of the major discrepancies between qualifying mental disorders and qualifying physical disorders – the need for ‘a well recognised disorder’ for the former but not the latter), were accepted by Government.

He undoubtedly played an important part as a member of the Pre-Legislative Scrutiny Committee for the Bill (the Committee's report reflected nearly all the College's aspirations), but it would be hard to overstate the support and help he has given the College based on his deep commitment to enabling rather than disabling people with mental disorders and his extensive understanding and experience of the parliamentary process. He remains a most valuable and valued friend to the College and the people we serve and, given the continuing uncertainty concerning the reform of mental health legislation in England and Wales, his assistance will be of benefit to the College for the foreseeable future.

Professor Anthony Ward Clare, FRCPsych

Professor Anthony Clare studied in Ireland at Gonzaga College, Dublin and then at University College, Dublin. He was attracted to medicine while recuperating in hospital from illness, and later – under the influence of the works of the great Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing – turned to psychiatry. He trained in psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital and Section of Epidemiology, Institute of Psychiatry with Professor Michael Shepherd where he obtained his MD and Membership of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He was then appointed Professor at St Bartholomew's Hospital where he carried out research on premenstrual syndrome.

He has been described as the very personification of the insightful analyst, an empathetic voice with fluent thinking and perceptive questioning who has done more for the image of psychiatry than any individual since Sigmund Freud. His research interests have been both biological and epidemiological, and his work on the role of gender in mental illness has been ground-breaking.

In 1966, he married Jane Hogan, who he met while she was studying for her MA in medieval English. The family returned to Dublin in 1988 at Jane's insistence. Jane works for a children's aid agency; Professor Clare was Medical Director of Dublin's St Patrick's Hospital and now works as Consultant General Adult Psychiatrist at St Edmundsbury Hospital.

Clare's prodigious broadcasting output on Radio 4 and television in the 1980s and 1990s raised the public profile of the profession of psychiatry and paved the way for the programmes of today, particularly All in the Mind. His books include In the Psychiatrist's Chair (linked to the popular radio programme of the same name) and Psychiatry in Dissent which is a classic of its kind. He co-wrote a book on depression with Spike Milligan (Depression and How to Survive It). This was well received and was incredibly powerful in reducing the stigma associated with depression.

The Rt Hon The Baroness Hale of Richmond, DBE, PC

As a very junior law lecturer Barbara Hale had to teach law to social workers and psychiatrists. There was no handy textbook, so she wrote Mental Health Law, which had its 4th edition in 1996 and awaits the outcome of present plans for mental health reform before going to a 5th edition. This led to her appointment to the Mental Health Review Tribunal.

From academia she went to the Law Commission where she was involved in the Report on Mental Capacity (1995) which eventually led to the Mental Capacity Act 2005. From the Law Commission she was appointed a High Court Judge in the Family Division where her jurisdiction included making declarations about the best interests of adults with mental incapacity. As an appellate judge she applied her experience to difficult decisions concerning seclusion and the forcible administration of psychotropic drugs. In 2003 she nailed her colours to the mast with a lecture on ‘Justice and equality in mental health law: the European experience’ when she collected the Prix Philippe Pinel.

Now that she is a Law Lord, psychiatrists, their patients and their patients’ families and carers can draw comfort that in the highest court in the land there is someone who realises that ‘psychiatry is not an exact science’, knows that ‘diagnosis is not easy or clear cut’, understands comorbidity, recognises as misleading dichotomy between mental illness and personality disorder in section 1 of the Mental Health Act 1983 and upholds the ‘psychiatrist's aim… to treat the whole patient’ (R v. Ashworth Hospital Authority [2005] UKHL 20).

Barbara Hale first befriended psychiatry in a university law department, she has been a steadfast friend to psychiatry over a distinguished academic and legal career, and as Baroness Hale of Richmond she is now a friend in high places. She deserves to be recognised as a Fellow as well as a friend.

Dr Sheila Mann, FRCPsych

Dr Sheila Mann is an old age psychiatrist who trained at the Maudsley Hospital. Her contributions to the field of psychiatry in the UK have been stunning. In her role as Chief Examiner and later through her contributions over a number of years to the Examinations Committee she has been instrumental in changing examinations and assessment procedures within the College.

Her contribution to psychiatry through the General Medical Council, on which for a considerable period she was the only psychiatrist, has been significant. During this period she also led as a key individual on the development of assessment programmes for poorly performing doctors.

She not only helped to develop the theoretical and clinical assessments schedules for the General Medical Council but was instrumental in setting up some of the pilot work which led to these procedures being standardised and accepted by the Council. These procedures are in use even now some 7 years after they were developed.

Her contribution to the field of psychiatry has been outstanding, especially in the context of medical politics and the General Medical Council. Her contributions in this field deserve wide recognition and by bestowing Honorary Fellowship the College is not only acknowledging her level and degree of commitment to psychiatry and psychiatric training but is also enabling future generations of trainees to follow in her path.

Professor Bruce Singh, MBBS, PhD, FRACP, FRANZCP

Professor Bruce Singh is currently Cato Professor and Head of the Department of Psychiatry at The University of Melbourne. He is internationally renown in the field of psychiatry for a number of activities, including teaching, research and policy development.

Having been born in Fiji he trained in Australia where he has worked in Newcastle, Sydney and Melbourne. In addition to his Chair he is also the Clinical Director of the North Western Mental Health Programme (Australia's largest mental health programme which provides a service to 1 million people in Melbourne). He is Associate Dean (International) and Director, Faculty Internationalisation Unit, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences (Psychology, Physiotherapy, Nursing, Population Health, Rural Health) at the University of Melbourne. In addition he is Chief Psychiatric Adviser to the Mental Health Branch, Victorian Department of Human Services and Minister for Health, and has been President of the Pacific Rim College of Psychiatrists. Within the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists he chairs the Academic Liaison Committee and has had various roles, including Chairman of the World Psychiatric Association 2002 Meeting Bid Committee and Chairman of the Fellowship Board, and has been responsible for the Committee for Examinations, Committee for Training and the Committee for Training in Child Psychiatry. He also chaired the Committee for Examinations (formerly Censor-in-Chief) and its subcommittees for Written Examinations and Exemptions and was an ex officio member of the Executive Committee and General Council. He has been Assistant Dean at The University of Melbourne and Professor of Psychological Medicine, Monash University, Royal Park and Alfred Hospitals, Melbourne.

He has contributed to and edited The Foundations of Clinical Psychiatry Textbook and also a book on the history of psychiatry in Victoria. His contributions to research in Australia and elsewhere in collaboration with the Institute of Psychiatry in London and Harvard University have been immense. He has published widely and has supervised the theses of several internationally well established academics. Awarding him the Honorary Fellowship would be an honour for the College.