GPs should offer work experience to boost diversity in profession, advises new guidance

More GPs should consider offering work experience at their practice, not only to boost recruitment to the profession, but also to widen participation in medicine, new guidance has recommended.

The guidance has been issued jointly by the Medical Schools Council (MSC), Health Education England, and the Royal College of General Practitioners.1

The MSC said that the issues associated with hosting individuals could seem “complex and time consuming” and could deter doctors from offering work placements.

The guidance, which provides a step by step guide to setting up work experience placements, aimed to demystify the process and make it achievable.

It covers every stage, from finding suitable applicants, through getting the practice ready, to evaluating the placement, as well as practical advice on the content of the application form, the structure of a placement, and insurance issues.

One of the recommendations of the final report of the MSC’s Selecting for Excellence working group—which was set up to broaden the diversity of applicants to study medicine—was to make it easier for those without existing connections to gain the necessary work experience.2

The guidance urged GPs to consider young people from more disadvantaged backgrounds.

“We have found that the vast majority of placements go to those who already have connections with the health service—we would like to open this out. We would like you to consider other criteria to ensure we broaden diversity within the health service,” the group said.

The criteria included those eligible for free school meals, or who weren’t currently in education, training, or employment; those from families where no one had yet gone to university; and those who wanted to get back into work after a period of unemployment or illness.

The guidance suggested that GPs would do well to team up with a school or college, as they could identify those who would get the most out of a placement and help to find people from outside the catchment area, avoiding potential confidentiality issues.

Potential doctors should not only have the opportunity to experience what it was like being a GP, but their placement should also include the role of the practice nurse and the administrators, so that they gained a rounded picture of what was involved in running a practice and how to work in a team, the guidance recommended.

“MSC’s involvement stems in part from its widening participation work, and this is in a sense broader than general practice because work experience in a GP surgery is relevant to future medics of all types and specialties—surgeries are often the geographically nearest clinical setting to a potential applicant. Tying it in with raising awareness about general practice among young people is of course very important too,” said an MSC spokesperson.