Learning environments: the Scotland experience

At Erskine (the largest of Scotland's veterans' charities) we welcome students on placement in all of our care homes. Erskine has four care homes across the central belt of Scotland, supporting 339 residents to live well and, importantly, to die well. The care home is an ideal learning environment, providing students with a wealth of learning opportunities.

At a professional level we recognise a duty to support the development of the next generation of health professionals, as in The Code (Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), 2018: 9.4): ‘Support students' and colleagues' learning to help them develop their professional competence and confidence’. Note that The Code does not just say support student nurses, it says ‘support students' and colleagues' learning’. At Erskine we support graduate students from nursing and physiotherapy, we have started to welcome student paramedics, we have even had genetics students on placement. In addition, we are looking at how we can support student social workers and student occupational therapists in the future. We also have Higher National Certificate students who are studying social care in further education colleges or on pre-nursing programmes.