Dr Melanie Stephens, Associate Professor of Adult Nursing at the University of Salford, is the lead for pioneering research focused on delivering and evaluating the impact of an interprofessional student training program in care homes. Here she shares some of the Managers’ initial insights from the project.
The public perception of care homes is far from positive and when asked, nine out of ten older people believe there are not enough care staff, and half have lost confidence in the standard of care homes since the start of the pandemic¹. Staff in social care are reporting they often do not have time to do their job and the sector faces challenges in workforce shortages². The implications of which are that care homes are often viewed as a last resort, for residents, staff, and families.
Despite such negativity, we went on a journey working with a research team from the University of Salford to deliver and evaluate the impact of an interprofessional student training care home scheme across our care homes in Greater Manchester.
Interprofessional education (IPE) consists of students from different health and social care professions learning ‘from, with and about each other to improve collaboration and the quality of care’³.
Whilst the project was aimed at increasing placements, it would also contribute to challenging perceptions of care home work, provide an opportunity to test a model of interprofessional practice and highlight the rewarding careers we know can be found in care home work.
From 2021-2023, 54 students from across Dietetics, Physiotherapy, Nursing (Adult, Learning Disability and Mental Health Fields of Practice), Podiatry, Prosthetics and Orthotics, Sports Rehabilitation and Occupational Therapy were placed across our homes. Depending on their programme of study some students attended the homes on a full-time basis, others as part of a split-site placement. We held weekly multi-disciplinary team (MDT) meetings to facilitate students, staff and residents, to work collaboratively on resident’s individual goals. This used a process called Action learning which develops collective problem-solving, critical thinking, and shared learning experiences. The process also ensures an examination of evidence based and best practice.
Reflecting on participating in this experience:
Karen Johnson, Director of Clinical Services, Heathlands Village and Marie Madeley, Clinical Manager, Heathlands Village
“From a resident perspective they benefitted from having the close contact with the students from different disciplines, supporting them to achieve their goals. Including the residents in the MDT meetings gave them a voice and some felt able to share their life experiences.
From the student’s perspective some felt unsure about the placement and their field of study as to whether it would actually benefit them in respect of their academic learning. However, by the end of the project they were able to express and share that working with other students was a positive aspect to their learning. They also came to realise that social care was more than just elderly people sat around doing nothing and the staff caring for them were highly skilled.
We had one student who actually returned to work for us!”
From our own perspective we have been able to increase our own knowledge from the students as historically we only have nursing students. This process has brought a new way of working with students who are from the allied professions. We have been able to champion health and social care in this arena and evidence that it is definitely not, the last resort.
Gail Howard, Registered Manager, Lakeside Nursing Home, Standish
“Having the students work alongside the team has been like a breath of fresh air. They have brought passion, a hunger to learn and updated knowledge and skills, which they willingly passed on to the staff and resident of the home. A pure pleasure to accommodate this initiative.”
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- Booth, R. (2023) Half of UK public fear family would not be well looked after in care homes. Guardian. 24 April 2023.
- Skills for Care (2023) The state of the adult social care sector and workforce in England. Accessed online, March 12, 2024 ly/4dvAdJT
- Freeth D, Hammick M, Reeves S, Koppel I, Barr H. (2005) Effective interprofessional education: development, delivery and evaluation. Oxford: Blackwell.
@StephensMelanie @SalfordUni
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