It is accepted that practice placements are instrumental in providing an invaluable education on professional concepts, attitudes and behaviours. However, despite suggestions that practice placement education needs to be modernised to meet the demands of the current climate, there is only evidence of a limited number of role-emerging placements within the United Kingdom despite their relative popularity and history abroad. This paper describes and briefly evaluates a ‘model’ of practice placement education within role-emerging settings for a full cohort of pre-registration occupational therapy students, which meets national and international standards and guidance for such programmes.

A REP experience as an occupational therapy student, can develop additional skills for qualified professional practice than traditional practice placements alone. The impact of such a placement matches with the 'Generation Y' traits of young adults who are now starting to emerge into training and the work place, translates well into a variety of working environments and lasts into career development. The placement model of occupation-focussed project development and the less apprentice style learning of a REP may be influential, and could be a suitable model within traditional placements.

No abstract

No abstract

Social prescribing has been used in some form in the National Health Service (NHS) since the 1990s, but in recent years there has been increased interest and investment by the United Kingdom (UK) government to include a wider range of community interventions and activities (NHS England, 2014), in part to make the approach more sustainable (Dyson, 2014). Social prescribing links people, through general practitioner (GP), nurse or other primary care referral, to local non-medical and social welfare support agencies in the community that provide activities and social interactions that may benefit health. Social prescribing particularly targets populations facing significant social, economic or psychological risk factors that themselves contribute to many preventable diseases and conditions. Often these populations experience lifestyle and social challenges, such as smoking, drug or alcohol misuse and unemployment, which in addition may exacerbate underlying ill-health and disease (Dyson, 2014). The kinds of interventions or activities that may already exist, but would now be eligible for referral by a GP, range from 'knit and natter' clubs, health promotional educational groups, arts, creativity, learning and exercise on referral, to fishing clubs (Dyson, 2014). Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) within the NHS have been tasked to work with local social care providers, charities and other community groups to identify suitable projects for funding (NHS England, 2014). This clearly not only offers opportunities for all allied health professions (AHPs) but also meshes with related governmental drivers for AHPs to be more substantively involved in public health and the promotion of wellbeing (Public Health England and Allied Health Professions Federation, n.d.). As one such example of promoting occupational therapy to a CCG, MSc students (authors Bell and Flanagan) on a role-emerging placement at Leeds Beckett University were placed into a GP practice in a socioeconomically