Educating our future workforce through leadership placements

Leadership placements within Health Education England are providing students with opportunities to learn leadership skills, develop soft skills and understand the NHS outside of clinical practice. Aneleigh Schofield and Mike Greaney began taking placement students to provide Allied Health Professions (AHP) students with leadership, co-production and project experience. The latest group of four placement students supported the planning and implementation of student focus groups that contribute to the RePAIR objectives within the allied health professions. 

Aneleigh said “having learners in the team gives a student voice to everything you do. You can test your ideas amongst the intended audience and often they will bring a different viewpoint that you might not have considered.”   

Student leadership placements last 6 weeks, and are supported with leadership training and the skills to facilitate small time-based projects with real outcomes. Staff time is required for student supervision and ensuring that the students understand the task and project goals. For further information on how to establish leadership placements contact Aneleigh Schofield.  

Hear from some of the second year MSc pre-registration physiotherapy students from Manchester Metropolitan University who have recently finished their leadership placement with Health Education England. 

Ben Wallace  

“This placement has really helped me to develop an insight into behind the scenes of the NHS and Northern Care Alliance service planning and how this will influence the future of our workforce.  

The thing I have enjoyed about this placement is the planning and carrying out of the project we have been assigned. It has been really useful preparation for my dissertation. We were given a topic to focus on and it was up to us, with guidance of our educators how to implement this in real life.” 

Isla Kenyon 

"It is a great insight to ‘behind the scenes’ and what goes on higher up to allow meaningful impact at a clinical level. It is interesting to meet people across different disciplines and be involved in the two projects side by side. It really helped to improve my management and time management skills which helps me in all walks of life, not just in a clinical setting. Sometimes, at a clinical level, it feels that it can be hard to create change, in this placement it feels like we are helping to provide a student voice in regards to student recruitment and attrition in the NHS.”  

 

Rhys Aston  

"During our leadership placement we have been invited to meetings we normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to attend. They have been insightful and have helped me develop on both a personal and professional level. We had the opportunity to update our CPD portfolio with the Edward Jenner programme, the NHS Leadership Academy and attend HEE education events.  Throughout my time at university, we have had the opportunity to participate in a variety of group tasks that encompass leadership roles, but I was really interested in developing my leadership skills further to understand what makes a great leader and the relevance this has to my future career."

Serena Rimmer  

"This placement has given me a huge insight into what leadership & management can look like within the NHS. Especially when you learn about the types of projects and how funding is used to support these initiatives in the north west to help improve both education and NHS services. It was really nice to see how the wider teams work alongside one another and how much they respect & value a student perspective. I definitely feel I have been able to improve my interpersonal skills. I am much more confident and am now able to change my team work and communication styles dependant on the audience. I feel comfortable now in voicing my opinion to colleagues. It is nice to be able to confidently justify why you’re doing something and feel that you are being actively listened to."