What support is available to students when on placement?

On placements you will be allocated a practice assessor and supervisor and the majority of the time your shifts will be with them and they are really supportive and enable you to fill in the documents that you need! Within all placement areas there are also PEFS (practice education facilitators) who you can go to if there are any issues or concerns. Alongside this you will be allocated an academic assessor who works for the University and they will liaise with yourself, university staff and placement staff.

For Medicine placements, we have supervisors we can contact, and an educational lead. My experience with both has been fantastic, and we regularly meet with both for weekly debriefs (which can be another place to discuss anything difficult), discuss our portfolio, and update on what has went well.

In addition to this, there is are University-based personal academic tutors and student support leads on the Medicine programme. They can be contacted in addition to the aforementioned staff on placement, and are happy to meet virtually or face-to-face regarding any issues we may have. They are always happy and willing to talk to us, and the staff of the medical school as a whole understand that working in healthcare can be a stressful time and we may see some upsetting scenarios.

The team in charge of placements can also be contacted if there are any issues relating to placement or also if there have been difficult things we have seen on placement.

We have a Wellbeing lead and Safeguarding lead on the programme, who you can contact if you ever feel is appropriate. They, in addition to the student support leads and personal academic tutor, can be spoken to in the pre-clinical years.

In addition to this, there is the university-wide Wellbeing, Inclusion, and other support teams you can contact at any point throughout your time here at Edge Hill if you ever face any difficulties.

Overall, there's been so many people I can turn to for support in my time here at Edge Hill, and staff are always willing to help and support us!