What can PSW offer?

When you complete a referral form for Professional Support & Wellbeing, you will be offered a confidential meeting with a member of PSW to talk through your situation and to help you come up with an action plan moving forward.

The aim of the meeting is to be supportive and is an opportunity for you to explore what options and resources would be helpful for you – allowing you to come up with a bespoke plan of support moving forward, often involving onward referral to one of our resource providers below.

Onward referral to one of our resource providers does require an initial PSW meeting, to ensure that the plan and referral is the most appropriate for you and your situation.

We take confidentiality seriously here at PSW and work hard to keep the service we offer to you separate from other areas of postgraduate medical education, such as ARCPs for example. We believe it is vital that you feel you can open up to us about the challenges you are experiencing in order that we can best support you. If we are concerned about the safety of you or others, we may need to discuss whether maintaining confidentiality is appropriate.

The aim of the coaching is to bring out the best in the individual, unlocking your potential through guided conversation and questioning.  

A coach will work with you as a facilitator, helping to raise your awareness through analysis and reflection, and therefore enabling you to formulate your own ideas and solutions. 

We fund up to a maximum of 6 sessions of coaching for you.

 Counselling is a talking therapy that is an effective way of managing your mental health. We can provide independent and short-term counselling to offer timely, independent, and confidential support.

Careers advice is a collaborative, client-centred process which supports reflection, learning, and informed career decision making. It can provide support to develop a range of tools benefitting on a personal and professional level. The specific skills and goals can also boost confidence, improve work performance, and build effective communication skills.

Health Education & Improvement Wales have some useful Postgraduate Medical Careers information.

Our exam support is generic for all specialties and provided by non-clinicians. Our exam coaches can help identify and support causes of poor exam results and study performance. 

We can provide a full dyslexia assessment if required for exam reasonable adjustments in those individuals with repeated exam failure and high likelihood of dyslexia. This takes 4 hours of assessment and then 20 hours to write the report. Therefore, this time needs to be considered when thinking about exam planning.

For most specialties, our ARA (Assessment of Reasonable Adjustments- a much shorter assessment – 1 hour) is accepted for exam purposes.

A South West exam revision guide will be available shortly.

If English is not your first language and you are experiencing difficulties communicating with others, our language sessions can be a useful resource for exploring underlying language and communication issues. 

This resource helps individuals improve upon their existing use of English in the workplace and focuses on how to deal with patients/relatives and colleagues in a clear and appropriate manner.  

We do not assess for ADHD and Autism.
 
However, PSW is able to provide support to neurodivergent individuals (whether they have a formal diagnosis or not). This will be via coaching, exam support or counselling.

We will provide an assessment to those with possible dyslexia affecting their exams or progression through training.

There has been national recognition if you have been away from clinical practice for more than 12 weeks, for whatever reason, you could benefit from a bespoke package of support so that you are given the best chance at a successful and supported return to work.

Further information can be found on the SuppoRTT  Pages