Meeting demand for clinical placements in one community trust

The effective management of learning in clinical practice is assuming growing significance for all health-care organizations. This is due to various professional and political imperatives that underscore the need to produce increasing numbers of practitioners who are sufficiently skilled to be deemed 'fit for practice', and must also be prepared to use their skills in different ways in a 'modernized' NHS. This article explores some of the ways in which one community trust has responded to this challenge, a challenge compounded by the need for extended final year medical student primary and community care placements. It also attempts to illustrate the extent to which we have recognized the importance of adopting an interprofessional approach to learning in and about practice.