Preparing placement supervisors for primary care: an interprofessional perspective from the UK

All the professions working in primary care provide placements for students. How common, or how profession-specific, are the competency requirements of the different professions for their members who supervise students on placements? If there is a significant degree of commonality in these competency requirements, how feasible would it be to develop an integrated interprofessional development and support programme for placement educators? These were the main questions addressed in this research project. The requirements for placement educators of four professions in the UK - nursing, medicine, occupational therapy and social work - were analysed and classified. Categories identified included the skills of enabling learning, knowledge of the theory and principles of learning, the ability to manage the learning environment and the ability to impart a sense of professional responsibility, as well as up-to-date knowledge on professional practice and on the relevant curricula. We concluded that only the last of these was profession-specific. The potential to use this classification for the development of an interprofessional placement educator training and support programme was explored, and the potential benefits of using this area to promote interprofessional learning were discussed. Issues that need to be considered include gaining cross professional involvement, whether service providers or universities should run programmes, whether there should be one or several programmes, and accreditation. In order to explore and take action on these issues a working group with representatives of the four professions was set up in the Primary Care Trust.