Exploring the Design, Implementation, and Impact of Student-Led Clinics in healthcare degree programmes

In 2024, the University of Leicester’s School of Healthcare, opened the ‘Jo Williams Clinic’, to students, staff and the local community to improve access to timely physiotherapy assessment and rehabilitation to patients.

Built on a similar model to that first delivered in Bradford, West Yorkshire, the clinic is delivered by physiotherapy students, on placement from multiple higher education institutions whilst supervised by senior physiotherapists. Working in teams of two to four to provide high level patient care, each student placement lasts between 5 and 9 weeks.

This innovative model, whilst addressing placement capacity concerns for physiotherapy students, offers students real-world clinical experiences,1 thereby providing the dual benefits of enhancing student competency development and providing timely care for patients2. The evidence bases for the design, implementation, outcomes, and long-term sustainability of student led clinics is limited. The Jo Williams Clinic therefore provides an ideal long-term opportunity to learn from the experience, evaluate impact on student learning and optimise the education model for translation to other settings and healthcare professionals.

Underpinned by experiential learning theory the PhD will first review the evidence for student led clinics to identify the most appropriate experiential learning theory on which to construct subsequent evaluations and define the parameters for evaluation.

This project offers a unique opportunity to contribute to the evolving landscape of clinical education and healthcare delivery. We encourage applications from diverse backgrounds and welcome candidates passionate about transforming physiotherapy education and practice.

With a PhD aim of describing how to optimise the model for student learning and patient care the PhD objectives could include:

• Describing how and where best to integrate such placements into undergraduate curricula
• Describing how best to prepare students for learning in such clinics
• Identifying the optimum clinic placement duration
• Exploring student’s and patient’s experiences and perceptions of this novel model of supervision
• Identifying which patient groups are most likely to access such care and benefit most from it

All PhD students at the University of Leicester join our doctoral college which provides an extensive training portfolio, preparing doctoral fellows not just for the research skills required for their PhD but also for future employment post-doctoral completion. A number of in-house training courses to develop qualitative research skills are available and ideal for the purposes of this PhD.

We would envisage this PhD providing a number of publications and opportunities to present data at conferences both in the UK and abroad. Papers including evidence synthesis relating to student led clinics, student and patient experiences of involvement in such clinics and triangulation with underpinning education philosophies within the multiple undergraduate programs would all create new knowledge. We anticipate the research being of interest to both physiotherapy and education-based conferences.