It is vital that education providers show us how their programme supports ‘interprofessional education’.
This means that they need to demonstrate how learners are able to learn with, and from, other relevant professionals and other learners, for the benefit of service users.
Example: working with nurses
Interprofessional education can include practitioners working in related professions, such as teachers or police officers, or in other health and care professions.
Taking the example of a paramedic programme, the programme leader might decide to involve nurses to deliver teaching because they work in close proximity with the profession.
The programme might have nurses delivering core modules, such as anatomy and physiology. Accident and emergency nurses could then lead seminars to explain the working relationship of the two professions. The programme might also arrange a special assignment for nurse and paramedic learners to explore their understanding of this relationship.
In this example, our visitors might ask why nursing has particularly been identified as a relevant profession, and how formal the ‘special assignment’ is. They will need to see this approach clearly evidenced in documentation to be sure that this standard is met.