Keele University Medical Students' Placements

Engaging Communities Solutions provides community placements for year 2 students through Healthwatch

As a Staffordshire based company and provider of Healthwatch across the Midlands and Cheshire, Engaging Communities Solutions were delighted to be approached by Keele University Medical School to provide community placements for some of its year 2 Medical students. In this article, we detail how the scheme worked, and feature testimonials from two of the students.

Covid-19 added restrictions and some opportunities

Four students were with us from December to April and in that time needed to complete 21 hours of work with us. Due to the Covid restrictions the placements all had to be completed remotely, which brought some challenges as well as some opportunities.

In normal times each student would have been able to go out and about with the Healthwatch Community Outreach Leads to understand their role and to engage with members of the public;  they might have attended a research focus group; or attended meetings with one of the Healthwatch Managers. However, all of the work that the students did was carried out using Zoom meetings, emails and phone calls.

This did mean that we were less restricted in terms of the locations that the students were able to get involved with, for instance in the past we would have been looking at Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent because Keele University is located in North Staffordshire. However, the students were able to be involved in research that was taking place at Healthwatch Leicester and Healthwatch Leicestershire, as well as attending meetings held by Healthwatch Walsall or Healthwatch Halton.

Two of our students from the placement have provided us with their reflections on the placement.

Firstly:

“Over the course of the placement, I became exposed to the ways in which ECS conducts itself, and how they make themselves accessible to the communities they wish to reach out to. This group helped break down some of the significant barriers felt by the community towards accessing healthcare and other provisions by its use of friendliness, ease of access and effective communication.

I found working with the group an honour, as it gave me a feeling of accomplishment and it was a great way to learn new skills such as interviewing people and collaborating with different organisations. I hugely recommend anyone who wants to give back to their community and experience first-hand how some of the important decisions regarding quality in healthcare are reached. I can only thank the ECS team for giving me the honour of doing such work and meeting such inspiring individuals.”

Secondly:

“I enjoyed volunteering with ECS as this enabled me to gain an insight into how the future delivery of healthcare could be influenced by community engagement. The whole approach is very service user based, taking into account patient experiences and their suggestions for improvement.

There are multiple opportunities to engage in various projects. I appreciated being able to interact with the survey participants, it has developed my ability to conduct interviewed based focus groups and take pertinent notes.”

We are looking forward to the opportunity to host more students in the future and using what we have learned about delivering the placements digitally to blend with the more usual approach of going out into the community.