Keep units infection free.. 'Shield' clinically vulnerable patients at high risk of fatality.. Reassure and support anxious staff and patients.. Maintain services during times of high staff sickness.

BackgroundWorkplace-based knowledge exchange programmes (WKEPs), such as job shadowing or secondments, offer potential for health and care providers, academics, and policy-makers to foster partnerships, develop local solutions and overcome key differences in practices. Yet opportunities for exchange can be hard to find and are poorly reported in the literature.ObjectivesTo understand the views of providers, academics and policy-makers regarding WKEPs, in particular, their motivations to participate in such exchanges and the perceived barriers and facilitators to participation.MethodsA qualitative study involving semistructured interviews with 20 healthcare providers, academics and policy-makers in England. Rapid data collection and analysis techniques were employed. Interviews formed part of a wider scoping study that mapped the characteristics and existing literature related to WKEPs.ResultsInterviewees reported being motivated to develop, sponsor and/or participate in WKEPs with a clear purpose and defined outcomes that could demonstrate the value of the time out of work to their organisations. Perceived barriers included competitive application processes for national fellowships, a lack of knowing how to identify with whom to undertake an exchange (varying ‘tribes’), and the burdens of time, costs and administration regarding arranging exchanges. WKEPs were reported to work best where there was a perceived sense of shared purpose, long-standing relationship and trust between organisations. Facilitators included existing confidentiality agreements and/or shared professional standards, as well as funding.ConclusionWKEPs were reported to be valuable experiences but required significant organisational buy-in and cooperation to arrange and sustain. To benefit emerging partnerships, such as the new integrated care systems in England, more outcomes evaluations of existing WKEPs are needed, and research focused on overcoming barriers to participation, such as time and costs.

Background It is a long-standing problem that medical students feel unprepared for practice following graduation. Disruptions to final year education during the COVID-19 pandemic have exacerbated this situation. Methods An online webinar series called “FY1 Survival Guide” was designed to cover the topics of the hidden curriculum. New medical graduates from the globe were invited to attend. An online survey was conducted afterwards in order to assess the improvement in confidence levels and the effectiveness of web-based teaching. Results 76 responses were included. 85.5% showed an increase in preparedness after attending the series. 96.1% revealed the topics were not covered in medical school. Over half (55.3%) favoured online teaching in general. Conclusion Our results demonstrate that online teaching is tantamount to face-to-face training. It could be the prospective new practice of foundation doctor training, yet further research should be conducted on exploring how to standardise and promote this pedagogy.

Knowledge mobilisation can be achieved through various routes. This can include immersive, in-person time spent in a different workplace with people from other disciplines or sub-sectors. By doing so participants mobilise and exchange knowledge through observing the dynamics of a different workplace; by learning directly from others with different expertise and/or through sharing their own expertise. We have called this form of knowledge exchange ‘Workplace-based Knowledge Exchange Programmes’ (WKEPs) and have focused on their role in the health and care sector because of the importance of knowledge mobilisation in this field yet their relatively low profile in the literature. This study explores the main characteristics of WKEPs among academics, providers, and policymakers in the health and care sector in the United Kingdom (UK) through a scoping review and mapping exercise. We systematically identified 147 academic articles (between 2010 and 2022) and 74 websites which offered WKEPs as part of, or all of, their knowledge mobilisation activities (between 2020 and 2022). Characteristics were grouped into structures, processes, and outcomes. WKEPs lasted between one day and five years and were mostly uni-directional. Exchange ambitions varied, aiming to benefit both the participants and their working environments. They commonly aimed to build networks or collaborations, improve understanding of another field and bring back knowledge to their employer, as well as improve leadership and management skills. Almost all programmes were for healthcare providers and academics, rather than social care providers or policymakers. In-person WKEP activities could be categorised into four domains: ‘job shadowing’, ‘work placements’, ‘project-based collaborations’, and ‘secondments’. The aims of many of the WKEPs were not clearly described and formal evaluations were rare. We used the findings of this study to develop a framework to describe WKEP activities. We suggest the use of common language for these activities to aid participation and research, as well as recommending principles for the comprehensive advertising of WKEPs and reporting of experiences after participation in WKEPs. We recommend the establishment of an online repository to improve access to WKEPs. These resources are necessary to strengthen understanding and the effectiveness of WKEPs as a mechanism for knowledge mobilisation.