Chair: Dr Alistair Cook

Alastair has been Associate Medical Director for Mental Health and Learning Disability Services in NHS Lanarkshire since 2002 and was appointed Director of Medical Education for the Board in 2010.

After training in SE Scotland Alastair took up a General Adult Psychiatry Consultant job with an interest in liaison psychiatry in Lanarkshire in 2007. He was quickly attracted to move into medical managemant as lead clinician at Hartwoodhill Hospital in 1999, followed by the Associate Medical Director role.

Alastair was deputy regional adviser for the West of Scotland and chaired the Scottish Division workforce group in the lead up to MMC and the foundation of the speciality training board for mental health. He also chaired the NHSQIS steering group for the development of Integrated Care Pathways.

From 2007 to 2010 Alastair was seconded full time to the Scottish Government Health Workforce Directorate where he led on the development of the "Reshaping Medical Workforce" project, was part of the UK medical education scrutiny group and the editorial team for the Gold Guide and was also responsible for the review of consultant appointment regulations leading to the formation of the external adviser system.

Vice-Chair: Dr John Taylor

John Taylor has been a Consultant General Adult Psychistrist since 1997.  Initially working in Glasgow South, he moved to Ayrshire and Arran in 2007 to take up post as Associate Medical Director for Mental Health Services. 

He has a keen interest in the development of services and training and continues to be an educational supervisor for higher trainees.  Since 2008, he has been the Secondary Care Appraisal Lead for Ayrshire and Arran and has been a NES tutor for appraiser training since 2010.

Prior to being Vice-Chair, he has been an elected member of the Executive Committee of the RCPsych in Scotland since 2007, and from 2010 has been Chair of the RCPsych in Scotland Medical Managers group.

His time continues to be split equally between clinical work and his other roles.

Meetings Secretary: Polash Shajaham

Polash is a Consultant Psychiatrist for NHS Lanarkshire and holds an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer position with the University of Glasgow.

Completing his undergraduate degree at the University of Edinburgh in 1989 he went on to complete basic psychiatric training at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. He was employed by the Medical Research Council as Clinical Scientist based at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital studying brain electrophysiology, scanning and transcranial magnetic stimulation. In 1999 he was appointed as Senior Lecturer and Consultant Psychiatrist by the University of Newcastle.  He returned to Lanarkshire in 2001 where he is responsible for a busy catchment area (Bellshill, Lanarkshire) although retains a keen interest in academic psychiatry and various mental health topics including antipsychotic effectiveness, polypharmacy and physical health issues in mental illness.

His main research interest is psychiatric hospital outcomes based research.