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Primary Care course overview

You find details on aspects of our Primary Care delivery below.

  • Students attend the practice for 7 sessions a week for 4 weeks in Years 3, 4, and 5
  • They are released from the practice on the same day each week to attend CCT teaching
  • The remaining half day away from practice is for the student’s personal learning and can be scheduled by the practice
  • Students may ask for this to be Wednesday afternoon in-line with other university activities, but this is up to the practice to decide
  • During their time in the practice student doctors should be involved in as much normal practice activity as possible. These should include Observing GPs, Nurses and other clinical staff, Consulting Independently, Home Visits, and specified Mandatory Experiences. It can also include Meetings, reviewing Laboratory Results, making referrals, Phlebotomy, Vaccinations, sitting with Reception. This list is not exhaustive, and we encourage practices to involve student doctors whenever possible
  • We recognise that every practice is unique and works differently to other practices, thus we accept that there must be a degree of flexibility in the structure of the student doctor’s time over their placement. 

Induction checklist for GP placements

  • Welcome to the Surgery
  • Tour of the facilities at the practice
  • Advise student of the named clinical and administrative lead and the contact details of the person they should contact in the case of illness or lateness
  • Introduction to staff members. Consider providing a written list of staff and their role within the practice.
  • Familiarisation with the physical setting - Availability of local shops for food/drinks
  • Reminder of professional responsibilities including dress code, conduct, punctuality, name badge.
  • Ensure that students are informed of any car parking restrictions.

Timetabling and meeting with GP tutor

  • A timetable for the placement including expected times to arrive/ leave and what they are doing for each session. This can be done on a weekly or entire placement basis and can be printed or emailed to students
  • Induction to computer systems and record keeping IT, data management and information governance, including access to and basic training on the practice patient record system
  • Reminder about student obligations for confidentiality and consent for patients (Duties of a Doctor) including anonymising case histories
  • Initial meeting within the first week (ideally on the first or second day) with the GP tutor to discuss learning outcomes and aims for the placement. This should include timetabling, tutorials, arrangement for feedback to and from students, e-portfolio requirements, student wellbeing and raising concerns.

Safety whilst on GP placement

  • Named GP and administrative lead contact details with whom the student should raise concerns whilst on placement – these may include patient safety, student safety, student wellbeing, staff safety, harassment, undermining or bullying.
  • Signposting students to School of Medicine ’Sharing Concerns’ form which can be found on their portfolio and here.
  • Advice to be given to students to include safety advice regarding the local area
  • Home visit safety (students not to attend home visits without clinician supervision)
  • Ensure students have read “staying safe” section in GP student handbook.
  • Location of safe place to leave coats, bags, bicycles etc, signposting to policies as below
  • Health and Safety guidance and policies to include:
    • Panic alarm system
    • Infection Control
    • Raising concerns/whistleblowing/harassment/undermining/bullying policy
    • Confidentiality
    • Fire safety
    • Safeguarding
    • Chaperone policy
    • Complaints policy
    • Information and data handling
    • Needle-stick/accident policy.

Please note - If a needle stick injury occurs, please manage as per local protocol and inform us via email: mbchb@liverpool.ac.uk.

Home visit policy

Home visits are a fundamental part of General Practice. They provide excellent learning opportunities for students to see how medical problems can affect the functionality and quality of life of a patient.

Incidents of violence or aggression are rare in the community. However, visiting patients in their own homes as a lone student exposes them to the potential risk of injury due to a violent patient or relative/pet, or of injury whilst travelling in the community. Therefore, we request that students do not attend home visits on their own and are supervised by a GP tutor, or a nominated clinician, when attending a home visit.

Please consider whether the visit is suitable for a medical student. A number of factors increase the risk of home visits, including type of accommodation, locality, history of alcohol misuse, drug misuse or violence. Before every visit, the GP tutor/supervisor should ascertain the level of risk the medical student would be exposed to during the visit when deciding if the visit is appropriate for the student. The risk could be physical or psychological. High risk visits are not suitable for medical students. We would include visits to patients with confirmed COVID-19 as high risk and unsuitable for students.