Patients and carers with direct experience of illness, health and care services, and those working with voluntary and community groups offer unique insights. These perspectives inform the work of healthcare professionals from the very start of their careers to develop truly effective person-centred practice.
Working in partnership
Health Sciences at Southampton works in partnership with patients and carers to ensure you always put the people you work with first when you qualify. As experts by the experience, living with a long-term health condition, they are collaboratively involved in your programme in differing ways.
Explore the headings below to see how the patient voice feeds into your education.
Selection days
The patient and public voice is present right from the very beginning of your healthcare journey, including our selection days. You can expect to participate in group discussions that have been directly influenced and designed by patient contributions and suggestions. Specific questions have been developed by patients that will challenge potential new students on their patient centred outlook.
School governance
Patients and carers serve on the Health Sciences Programme Committee, giving a unique perspective within the highest educational governance group of the School. This committee provides guidance regarding the academic content and educational direction of Health Sciences. Patients are also an essential component of course validation panels that consider and give approval for new and revised academic programmes. Patient involvement throughout these activities continues to provide a unique insight and influence to the integral workings of the School.
“Having a representative of the experts by experience group as a member of the Programmes Committee has been incredibly valuable in enabling us to stay grounded, and service user and carer focussed, as we make decisions about the evaluation and development of our education provision.” Professor Anne Baileff – Deputy Head of School, Health Sciences.
Strategic planning
In order to help coordinate patient involvement across Health Sciences, The Experts by Experience (EbE) Patient Reference Group was set up in 2012. The group meets quarterly and works to increase patient and carer involvement within all levels of the School of Health Sciences at the University of Southampton. The EbE Group has developed a strategic plan which is updated regularly throughout the year and was developed to set objectives regarding how patient involvement could become more visible and impacting throughout Health Sciences.
Learning within modules
Our Long Term Conditions and Care module (a Year 2 undergraduate nursing module) encourages students to consider the lived experience of a person with a long term condition and their family. There are a number of sessions developed in collaboration with such people who are able to talk to students directly about what they expect from nurses with regard to their own condition. The module highlight is a ‘Partnerships in Care’ student conference in which many patient groups and individuals run workshops. The keynote is always delivered by a patient leader with a national profile.
Face-to-face patient/carer sessions
Patients and carers with direct experience of illness, health and care services, and those working with voluntary and community groups offer unique insights. These perspectives inform the work of healthcare professionals from the very start of their careers to develop truly effective person-centred practice.
Employability week
We co-produce a patient panel session for 80 healthcare students during employability week to help them prepare for job interviews that may involve patients on the interview panels. The sessions are interactive and involve students thinking about how they would respond to and ask questions to patient interview panel members, facilitated by the patient panel themselves.
