Widening participation and the Foundation Year for Medicine: embedding a community based placement

A joint initiative from HEFCE/HEE, published in October 2017, in-vited HEFCE- fundable Higher Education Institutions to bid for the expansion of undergraduate medical education places. A bid from Edge Hill University was submitted for the development of a new medical school with a successful outcome.
The Government’s priorities included widening participation and improving ac-cess to medicine, so that the medical workforce is more representative of the population it serves. Hence, the Faculty of Health Social Care & Medicine incor-porated a Foundation Year for Medicine (MBChB with Foundation Year) specifi-cally aimed at widening access to students who live in the North West of England and typically attend state schools where attainment levels are below the national average.
The aim of the programme is to equip and support widening access students throughout their medical degree and to raise aspirations in the community by ensuring that doctors trained at EHU are representative of the local population they serve. Successful completion of the Foundation Year guarantees entry for students onto the MBChB programme.
The Foundation Year for Medicine programme is innovative as it directly aligns to the curriculum and philosophy of the MBChB programme, and hence the General Medical Council’s Outcomes for Graduates1. With an emphasis on widening access and social accountability, the programme also includes core community- based placements in the local community. The aim of these unique community- based placement is to foster understanding of health and healthcare in the community where students reside and to develop an understanding of multi- disciplinary health teams. This pre- medical community- based placement and associated re-flective portfolio element of the Foundation Year programme is unique.
Methodology The aim of this presentation is to explore perceptions of the stu-dents’ first community- based placement in the Foundation Year for Medicine. Thematic analysis from evaluations and forums will be presented.
Results Analysis and results focus on the challenges and opportunities associ-ated with embedding this unique community- based placement experience into the programme.
Discussion The presentation will conclude by providing an overview of how this experience informs forthcoming community learning experiences in Year 1 of the MBChB programme (September 2020).References1. General Medical Council. Outcomes for graduates: 2018. London: GMC, 2018.