Edge Hill Medical School. The vision. The challenge. The opportunities.

Education Institutions to bid for new undergraduate medical education places. A bid from Edge Hill University (EHU) was successfully submitted for the development of a new medical school taking students from 2020.
Out of approximately 30 Universities who applied only 5 were selected. EHU is the only University developing its own curriculum – the others are adapting curricula from other Universities. EHU was picked because of our vision, which involves developing a medical programme which will have emphasis on primary care and mental health, would produce advocates for health and the flourishing of the local community and graduates who can effectively respond to the diverse health needs of individuals and populations through collaborative and inter-disciplinary working. There are a number of challenges to introducing a new medical school which includes extremely close scrutiny from the GMC and a number of very intensive stages to negotiate. The programme is a spiral non-modular curriculum which is new to EHU and unfamiliar to many colleagues. There is also the issue of aligning assessments with a contingency medical school (in this case the University of Liverpool) which has a different type of curriculum and organising clinical placements in a crowded region. Extensive staff recruitment and development is also required. Challenges bring opportunities, though. This is an opportunity for further EHU engagement with the local community, service users and carers, the strengthening
10
of existing ties and creating new ones with NHS partners, plus creating new partnerships and relationships between departments within EHU.