What can be done about home health fieldwork?

Clinical Placements for the Professions Allied to Medicine, Part 1: A Summary

The shortage of clinical placements for undergraduate students from the professions allied to medicine has been a longstanding problem. A research project was commissioned by the National Health Service Executive (North West) and the Lancashire and South Cumbria Education and Training Consortium to explore the issues around the present clinical placement provision and to identify alternative models of clinical education that could be used in North-West England. A combination of quatitative and quantitative research methods was used to explore the clinical placement difficulties and to identify potential solutions.

The report highlighted the complexity of the clinical placement issues and concluded that a combination of strategies needs to be used in tandem in order to address the difficulties. The problem is multifaceted and, consequently, there is no one single solution. The way forward lies in the cooperation and collaboration of education and training consortia, education providers and service providers in implementing the recommendations, which have the potential to increase the numbers of fieldwork education placements that prepare students not only for current but also for future practice.

Clinical Placements for the Professions Allied to Medicine, Part 2: Placement Shortages? Two Models that can Solve the Problem

Traditional models of fieldwork education are unable to provide for the increasing numbers of student placements required to cope with the growing demand for qualified staff. Part 1 of this article summarised the recent research carried out in the North West Region which explored many clinical placement issues. It highlighted the need for occupational therapists to use different approaches to fieldwork education and to utilise non-traditional placement models which have the potential to increase the numbers of appropriate learning experiences without compromising the placement quality.

Willingness to test new placement models is the key issue. Part 2 of the article looks at current placement provision and describes the advantages and disadvantages of two fieldwork education models identified in the North West Region research: the collaborative and the role-emerging models. These models have the potential to increase the numbers of good quality placements available to occupational therapy students while preparing them for working in a changing and challenging health care environment.