Hybrid Placement Project - Case Study
Background
In an effort to increase the availability of student placements within Primary Care, we engaged with the Derby Hub+ to learn more about their Hybrid Placement Project. The approach resonated with our goals at NATH (Nottinghamshire Alliance Training Hub), and we decided to offer our practices a similar hybrid placement model.
We chose to pilot the hybrid placement model with two second-year nursing students from the University of Nottingham. This number felt manageable for our pilot study as we recognised the limited capacity and space within the NATH office and us being a small team. Hosting just two students allowed us to manage resources effectively while ensuring a high-quality learning experience.
Rather than adhering to the traditional model, where students complete their entire placement within a GP practice — we adopted a flexible approach. NATH hosted the students and coordinated with several organisations within Primary Care to share the responsibility (These are listed below). Each organisation agreed to take the students for one or two days a week, creating a diverse and dynamic placement experience.
This hybrid model was introduced in response to the growing difficulty practices face in hosting students for a full placement period. Factors such as staffing shortages and increasing workloads have made it challenging for GP practices to commit to traditional placements. By distributing the responsibility across multiple organisations, we aimed to alleviate these pressures while still providing valuable learning opportunities for the students.
During this 3 week placement, the students spent time with the following organisations/people:
Shadowing Kate Knowles, ICS Advanced Practice Lead
Derby Road Medical Centre
PICS with PCN First Contact Physiotherapist and a variety of other clinicians within the practice
NEMS – 111 call centre and GP out of hours service
Sarah Thomas, Primary Care Evidence Support – looking at research on childhood immunisation and training on how to do literature searches
At a hospice
Shadowing Rushcliffe Care Homes Team
They also undertook an induction to Primary Care and met a number of times with their clinical assessor.
Gwen Cattermoul, 2nd Year Student Nurse in conversation with Michele Tuttle, Learning and Development Project Officer.
I started off by asking Gwen about previous placements and her concerns about this placement before it started.
Gwen had previously done one placement at QMC. She said she was a little sceptical about this placement because it was phrased in a way that made her concerned that she and her colleague were going to be guinea pigs. However, after speaking to her Tutor, who was very enthusiastic about the opportunity, Gwen was looking forward to it.

I asked Gwen what she enjoyed most about the experience.
Gwen said “I think it was valuable to be able to learn about all of the different roles that are involved in Primary Care. The first week was more lecture style and I really wanted to get out. However, I think having that base of knowledge before, in retrospect, made it easier for me to understand what was going on when people were having discussions, between Primary Care deliverers. So, I thought that was really valuable and I did enjoy being with a variety of different healthcare professionals. I've got to be with Healthcare Assistants, Paramedics, GPs etc. I really enjoyed that."
I then asked which areas didn’t appeal so much.
Gwen said that they spent a lot of time with the First Contact Physio who went out of her way to get them involved with as many different clinicians as possible. However, the students didn’t always feel it was applicable to their studies. It was, however, interesting to see a different professional at work and get that perspective. Gwen also said it was great to be able to spend time with the Mental Health Occupational Therapist and they were so grateful that patients were happy for them to sit in.
Also, travel was sometimes difficult, having to go somewhere different every day. It’s important to have contact details of each host.
I then asked Gwen about her favourite part of the placement.
She said this was the time at Derby Road Health Centre because everyone was so willing to let them get involved and be hands on.
"I thought that was really valuable and I did enjoy being with a variety of different healthcare professionals."
I asked Gwen how she felt about the support received during the placement.
Both students really appreciated having the WhatsApp group with our team at NATH so any queries could be answered quickly. Also, the online timetable proved to be useful. They both felt well supported by their Clinical Assessor after some initial hiccoughs getting the assessor access to their PebblePads.
I asked Gwen for her overall thoughts on the placement.
She said, with the support of the assessor, she’d signed off a lot more proficiencies than she thought. Although there wasn’t a lot of paediatric focus on the placement, they could clearly transfer all the skills learned into paediatric care.
The hybrid placement model offered several benefits:
Students gained exposure to a variety of Primary Care environments, broadening their understanding and skills.
Sharing the placement among multiple organisations reduced the burden on any single practice.
The project fostered greater cooperation among Primary Care organisations.
This initiative demonstrated that innovative placement models can address capacity challenges while enriching the student experience. We are optimistic about the potential for scaling this approach in the future and are committed to continuing our efforts to support student nurse placements in Primary Care.

Tagged as: *Nursing Team, NATH Projects
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