[liedra]

This is a failing of your supervisor and university if you have this experience in a UK university. I'm currently supervising PhD students at De Montfort University and we are required by the university to have AT LEAST monthly meetings with our students (usually 2-3 supervisors per student too). We support our students with seminar and theoretical workshop series, and encourage and support our particularly promising students to produce papers and submit them to conferences and journals.

There is a LOT of hand holding that goes on in our PhD programme. But your mileage may vary. I've heard that Russell Group universities can be a particularly mixed bag in this regard, but academics at other universities without such big names have more to gain by supporting our students.