Placement recovery and expansion

Background

In response to the growing demand on healthcare services in England, Health Education England (HEE) funded the allied health professional (AHP) bodies with a Workforce Education and Reform (WFER) programme. In total, there were nine different work streams.

Placement recovery and expansion was an overarching strategic aim of the WFER with a specific aim to drive innovation in pre-registration practice-based learning.

The practice-based learning framework

Developing a practice-based learning (PBL) framework has brought together several elements to achieve the overall aim. The inclusion of the four pillars of practice embedded within the framework links the PBL framework to the workplace and prepares our learners for the diverse workloads expected of the modern twenty-first-century podiatrist. It brings into focus the importance of the updated HCPC Standards of Proficiency that every graduate will need to meet to become a registrant and practice in the UK as a podiatrist and maps these to the proposed PBL activity.

The framework challenges us to look differently at practice-based learning placing the learner front and centre. It asks education providers of PBL activity to look deeper and more broadly at what activity could be offered to a learner.

Throughout the development of the work, we have:

• Worked with Royal College of Podiatry (RCPod) members via our webinar programme
• Shared the development of the framework with NHS workforce reform groups, HEI colleagues, students, learners and the wider AHP community
• Worked collaboratively with other AHP professional bodies to co-produce parts of the content.

The final framework has an innovative design supporting students and learners, practice educators, HEI podiatry programmes, and anyone else engaged in podiatry PBL learning, to deliver innovative, quality, practice-based learning experiences to our next generation of podiatrists.

Download the practice-based learning framework (non-interactive PDF)

View the practice-based learning framework as an interactive PDF