Training the future medical workforce of Lancashire and Cumbria

Could your GP Practice support the training of the future medical workforce of Lancashire and Cumbria?

The establishment of a School of Medicine builds on UCLan’s expertise in:

Dentistry
Pharmacy
Midwifery
Paramedic practice
Nursing

This expertise helps us train new generations of doctors and Physician Associates (PAs).

Since our establishment in 2015, we have enrolled over 600 medical students and over 120 PA students. These students are being taught at our Preston, Burnley and Westlakes campuses.

As part of their programmes, our students have been on placement for the last six years and indeed, our PAs are now employed throughout the region, helping to meet the demand for our local NHS services. All of our medical graduates have remained in the UK for foundation year. Many of those placements have been in GP Practices and feedback has been excellent.

As we are currently restricted to the number of places we can offer to UK students, we only accept applications from North West students, with the aim of encouraging the recruitment and retention of a local workforce. This year we have 15 UK funded placements and two bursary places. The subsequent year will bring the bursaries up to four per year with the extra students being drawn from a local school participation project. We also are hopeful to be granted more UK regular placement funding.

However, we are also an international School of Medicine, attracting some of the best global medical students to study in the region.

All our medical students will be eligible to join Foundation Training and many already express an interest to remain in the UK for work.

Demand for UK medical training and employment is high, and we are growing at a rapid rate. We are currently looking for further GP Practices to support the training of the future workforce of Lancashire and Cumbria. We work with experienced training practices (and are happy for our students to attend where other medical schools have placements) but also welcome practices new to training medical students.

The development of the University of Central Lancashire School of Medicine is good news for the region and for the patients we serve, and future funded research and teaching opportunities will be a welcome addition to the area.

What we need from GP Practices

With MBBS students being placed in General Practice from Years 1 to 5, there are lots of opportunities to become involved in medical student education.

Years 1 and 2 are there for a general exposure to the primary care team and the clinical systems that are in use and the broader the exposure the better. Spending time with Receptionists, Practice Managers, Health Visitors, Practice Nurses etc, are all valuable experiences to help students build a picture of the range of the service. They also receive training in clinical skills and communication skills from the start of their teaching at UCLan, so they are quickly able to spend useful time with patients to hone the skills they are learning.

Students from Year 3 are expected to become members of the practice team with a case load. They will have an increasing ability to make informed and sensible management decisions and already have a good set of clinical skills, communication skills and clinical knowledge. Our main priorities for the students on placement are to clerk plenty of patients each week and to get a wide exposure to the case mix and activities of general practice.

By Year 5 we expect that the students will be proficient at interacting with patients and performing consultations on their own. They should now be conducting their own supervised surgeries.

Teaching experience required

This is an ideal place for GPs that are new to formal education of students to start and for existing educators to start introducing students to the practice at an early stage (there is no restriction for our students to be in a practice where other medical school have placements).

The lead GP supervisor, if new to education, who is taking Year 1 or 2 will need to complete an online course available through UCLan, called Epigeum, that takes roughly seven hours to complete.

We can provide further training for those practices that wish to take Year 3 but this is not an absolute requirement. For example, practices who take ST trainees, FY2 trainees or who already have taken students from other universities already have the necessary skills to take these students. Other qualifications are suitable as well, for example, those who have completed the Manchester PRIME course.

Supervision required

The requirements of a GP Supervisor are to make sure there are appropriate learning arrangements in place and to offer formative support and assessment at the beginning and end of each module. We will provide detailed handbooks containing learning objectives and clinical skills the students can undertake for each year group.

There are expectations around the supervision of students to make sure learning outcomes are on track but there is no requirement to take part in any summative assessments. The student selected component (SSC) in Year 3 involves a clinical audit. This will run during the eight-week GP placement.

We expect most students will wish to complete a primary care audit and hope your practice will be able to support this. The request to provide feedback and mark the final audit report has been removed, as these tasks will now be completed by the UCLan marking team.

However, we have found that many GPs also enjoy taking part in summative assessments of DOPS (Direct Observation of Procedural Skills) and Mini-CEX (Mini- Clinical Evaluation Exercise) and we provide training for that if desired. Because the students come in pairs (in Years 1-5) they can accompany each other on home visits and to peer learn – in other words, to clerk patients/ chaperone together.

The School encourages the reporting of events (both positive and negative) as an essential part of a high quality, professional system. We want our students to be comfortable working within a system that uses feedback and we hope that all our providers will work with us in this regard. We have three Event Forms available online to support this process i.e. Professional Lapses, Positive Feedback and Wellbeing and Safety.

What’s in it for the practice?

As a new, modern and innovative medical school, we aim to provide the very best in medical education.

The clinical placement team is led by a fun and enthusiastic group of local GPs. Why not be part of this exciting journey?

If you are already a training practice you will be well versed in the benefits of promising medical education. Why not use your skills to teach and support the next generation of doctors?

Having medical students in the practice encourages the whole team to think about ‘why’ they do what they do. It encourages everyone to work in a reflective way.

It helps your clinicians stay up to date. Questions from students can become learning needs for their supervisor. Learning is a two-way process. Supervisors can also gain valuable insights from the students.

There is a certain kudos from being a teaching practice. It demonstrates a commitment to medical education within the practice and we also supply each practice with a very smart plaque demonstrating that they have been accredited by UCLan as an undergraduate training facility.

We will provide student feedback after each placement to allow the practice to develop and this can also be used for your own appraisal process.

There’s also a financial reward, which helps towards freeing up staff to dedicate some time to the students.

Finally, a positive experience in your practice won’t be forgotten and might just stimulate an interest in returning to the practice in later years to train or to work.

What's it like?

"Having med students at the practice was just as enriching for me as it was for them. They had a great enthusiasm for learning and made my day a whole lot more interesting. We’ve all got it in us to teach and it’s great to be able to harness that ability. It was really easy to start taking students and didn’t take much setup time or cause any disruption. Patients enjoyed being given time on their own with the student, who had time to fully explore their issues. The UCLan team are very helpful and approachable. I would definitely recommend it."
— Dr Nili Gupta (GP Partner)

For further information please email:

General Inbox – medicineplacements@uclan.ac.uk

Dr Marie Martin Dr Marie Martin (Central and South Lancs, Cheshire and Merseyside)

Dr Kirstie Caine – Kcaine1@uclan.ac.uk (West Lancs)

Dr Matthew Orr MOrr5@uclan.ac.uk (East Lancs)

Dr Rick Tranter – RTranter@uclan.ac.uk (Cumbria)

Dr Peter Dixon – PADixon@uclan.ac.uk (Physician Associate)

Dr Hazel Owens - Hsowens@uclan.ac.uk (Physician Associates)

For administrative purposes please contact:

Aamena Dedat – Adeda t1@uclan.ac.uk

(Senior Placements Coordinator)

Patricia Johnson – P AJohnson@uclan.ac.uk

(Senior Placements Coordinator)