The Cumberland Infirmary is the District General Hospital, located in Carlisle. The new hospital built in 2002, encompasses all the acute services on a single site. Psychiatry services are based at the Carleton Clinic located to the south of Carlisle.

We are at present offering the following possibilities for hospital posts:

• Accident and Emergency
• Dermatology
• General medicine, incorporating Rheumatology and Renal Medicine
• Women's Health
• Paediatrics
• Psychiatry at the Carlton Clinic, Carlisle
• ENT
• Ophthalmology

The requirement from GMC is that the GPRs rotation is “balanced”.

All the posts have educational programmes geared to the needs of GP Registrars. GP Registrars receive regular assessment of their educational needs from their clinical supervisor.

Training standards in hospital posts

Hospital Departments and Consultants

The hospitals in Carlisle are the Cumberland Infirmary, Carlisle, and Carleton Clinic. There are also 'cottage' hospitals at Brampton, Keswick, Penrith and Wigton.

The GP Registrar will be attached to a named clinical supervisor in the appropriate department. Access continues to the half-day release course on a weekly basis during the course term times, and hospital departments release GP Registrars to attend all these sessions.

Hospital Posts: The details

Accident & Emergency
A busy department serving Carlisle and the surrounding area. Provides experience pertinent to General Practice, dealing with minor injuries, acute emergencies, more severe trauma and a wide range of medical problems. Appropriate experience for all GPRs who have not undertaken A&E as part of their foundation programme, or for those who want to develop their skills further. More...

Dermatology
Primarily outpatient based, with teaching very much on the job, covering all the range of skin diseases seen in General Practice. Part of the on-call rota for general medicine. More...

All GP Registrars employed in the dermatology post are expected to have completed a course in minor surgery skills before they start the post. Information about courses can be obtained from the scheme. More...

ENT
Mainly based in outpatients. Very helpful for General Practice. The ENT post includes cover for orthopaedics and maxillo facial surgery when on call, which broadens the range of experience in the post. More...

Ophthalmology
Mainly based in outpatients. Develops skills in dealing with acute and chronic eye problems. More...

General Medicine, incorporating rheumatology and renal medicine
The post gives the SHO an important opportunity to develop rheumatology experience - useful for the large amount of musculo-skeletal and joint disease seen in General Practice. The post has input to the medical on call rota. In addition, some time spent in the renal unit will develop knowledge in dealing with chronic kidney disease and the therapeutic issues around this complex and common condition. More...

Women's Health
Three GP Registrars in the department are from the Vocational Training Scheme and the teaching bears this in mind. We consider the post a must for all our VTS doctors, and most GP Registrars will have the opportunity to work in this post, which has been recently developed to focus on the whole breadth of women's problems and is not limited to "O&G". More...

Paediatrics
Another must-do post for those with no paediatric experience at this stage. Enables GP Registrars to develop the skills for managing children and their families, as well as recognising the sick child. More...

Psychiatry
It does not take long in the GP Registrar consulting career to be exposed to the huge psychological and psychiatric morbidity in General Practice patients. This post gives experience of in-patients, out patients and access to other services like drug and alcohol, counselling, acute problems and psychology. More...

• Please note that hospital posts may be subject to change.

Updated by BC on 7/10/09