The project sought to introduce an interprofessional training programme for 3rd year pre-registration students across a range of professional groups. The programme was developed collaboratively with three National Health Service (NHS) sites. Practice education facilitators (PEFs), social work and voluntary sector equivalents and lecturers were involved in developing the content and pedagogic approach.
The programme ran over a period of six weeks and was delivered on Trust premises each week to a range of 50 pre-registration 3rd year students from different professional disciplines: nursing (adult, child, mental health and learning disabilities), physiotherapy, podiatry and social work (although the social work students were studying at masters level – structural issues meant that it was not possible for BA social work students to participate on this occasion). Once the students had completed the programme, they were invited to participate in a focus group to obtain their views about the training. Each site has a dedicated PEF who participated in the development, delivery, and evaluation of the programme.
From the 50 initially recruited, 23 students from the different professional groups volunteered to participate in the focus group.
Four PEFs were involved in the development of the programme and participated in the study evaluation.
A mixed methods exploratory case study using an action research approach was used to fully explore the development, impact and utility of the Interprofessional Learning Training Programme (ILTP). The research, predominantly qualitative in nature, sought to capture the students’ experiences of the ILTP and the PEFs’ experience of being involved in the ILTP
