These case studies highlight innovative student placements involving remote contact with patients. These Technology Enabled Care Services (TECS) may include telephone consultations, video consultations or digital contact.
A remote and face-to-face placement in a pain team
Students on this pain placement benefited clinically despite the new way of remote working and enhanced their MSK knowledge and skills.
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Who was involved: Angela Charnock and Joy Eccles, clinical specialist physiotherapists – Pain Team Central Lancashire Moving Well Service, Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Trust
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Placement profile: Pain Team
Using technology to provide three different types of patient interaction on a community MSK placement, Lancashire
Advanced MSK Physiotherapist Glen Davies and his team redesigned their student placement model to include telehealth and video consultations as well as face-to-face contact, enabling both learning opportunities and flexibility in structure.
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Who was involved: Glen Davies, advanced MSK physiotherapist, Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
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Placement profile: WWL
Charity based role-emerging community placement, Essex
Demonstrating the impact of having physiotherapists within a service, Dean Jeffreys developed a placement opportunity in the charity MS-UK.
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Who was involved: Dean Jeffreys, online programme and projects manager MS-UK
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Placement profile: MS-UK
Supporting older people’s health and wellbeing with a collaborative placement approach, Huddersfield
THRIVE, a student-led telehealth coaching service to support older people during the pandemic, was set up in collaboration with two charities by Bethan Hebberd at the University of Huddersfield.
Why was it innovative?
Not only did this placement develop students’ telehealth coaching skills, it also addressed a gap in practice provision, sought to meet the needs of the local community and enabled inter-professional learning, as both physiotherapy and occupational therapy students took part. Projects were completed with a 5:1 student to educator model and supervision was completed remotely.
Who was involved?
- Bethan Hebberd, physiotherapy lecturer, University of Huddersfield.
- Age UK Wakefield.
- Aspire, a community charity for over-55s in Huddersfield.
Top Tips
- You need adequate admin support and IT systems.
- Don’t assume that the students have IT skills.
- Increased peer support and learning about health coaching has helped students to gain confidence.
Read the full placement profile:
Placement profile: University of Huddersfield
A university-led placement to develop remote consultation skills, Norwich
Dr Kelly Walker and team at the University of East Anglia developed a six-week remote placement for 55 students to increase their knowledge about telehealth consultations.
Why was it innovative?
Acknowledging the huge rise in telehealth for physiotherapy consultations, the academic team created a placement structure that included teaching, health coaching, motivational interviewing, virtual case studies and project work. Peer learning and feedback between students increased their confidence levels.
Who was involved?
- Dr Kelly Walker, course director of BSc physiotherapy, University of East Anglia.
Top Tips
- Where possible, integrate clinicians using telehealth in practice.
- Where possible, integrate service users throughout the placement.
- Ensure students are prepared in terms of IT requirements and interpersonal skills.
Read the full placement profile:
Placement profile: University of East Anglia
Implementing a virtual student placement model, multi-centred
Matthew Wyatt of Connect Health developed an innovative musculoskeletal (MSK) student placement model that is completed remotely from students’ homes.
Why was it innovative?
The placement model offers three core elements: shadowing and co-delivering remote consultations; planning and delivering patient exercise and education sessions; and engaging with a range of educational learning resources. Not only has this led to fantastic learning opportunities for students but it has also increased the organisation's virtual offering and placement capacity, with more than 200 placements being completed since April 2020.
Who was involved?
- Matthew Wyatt, consultant physiotherapist and regional clinical lead, Connect Health.
Top tips
- Consider what aspects of your service students could shadow – for example MSK, Advanced Practice Physiotherapy, pain, rheumatology and occupational health clinics.
- Consider in what way students could get some patient interaction.
- Consider how students could help to improve your offering.
