Final Report > Chapter 25: Competent Healthcare Professionals > Broadening the notion of competence > Professionals learning together

Professionals learning together

18 We have said that one of the most effective ways to foster an understanding about and respect for various professional roles and the value of multi-professional teams is to expose medical and nursing students, other healthcare professionals and managers to shared education and training. We add some further detail here.

19 We believe that the process of shared learning must begin as early as possible. As we have said, the benefits of bringing together undergraduate students from different disciplines to be educated together should be explored with vigour. Our preference, in time, would be to go further. While recognising the challenge it represents, we urge that thought be given to creating an undergraduate first year of entry which is common to all, whatever discipline they may wish ultimately to pursue. In this year, there would be a common core curriculum, aimed not so much at inculcating technical knowledge but at a broader understanding of health, healthcare and the NHS. This would involve the creation of an educational framework in which aspiring healthcare professionals could initially take a range of courses which would equip them to work in the field of health and healthcare, although not necessarily as a nurse or doctor. Thus, students could come to the view that, rather than practise medicine, it is management or nursing or another healthcare profession which they prefer, and thus go on to specialise in courses which are wholly geared to those careers. Equally, a student contemplating nursing may wish to switch to studying medicine. It may immediately be objected that there is such a disparity in the educational qualifications of the various groups of students that it would be impossible to teach them all together. Our reply is simple. They will have to work together later.

20 One enormously beneficial result of this approach would be to engender mutual understanding and respect among those starting out on the road to becoming healthcare professionals. It would help to address the damaging inter-tribal rivalries, which we identify as a weakness in the current culture of the NHS. We recognise that this approach would have significant implications for the organisation of the initial phases of the healthcare professional's education, but we do not think that they are insurmountable. To this end, the Council for the Regulation of Healthcare Professionals (which we referred to in the last chapter and discuss in greater detail later) should make it a priority to promote common curricula and shared learning across the professions. We think, therefore, that the right approach would be to pilot such courses in three or four universities, and to evaluate their impact before any larger scale changes were introduced.

21 Throughout professional life there must be more opportunities than exist at present for healthcare professionals to learn and develop together. Some examples undoubtedly already exist, such as the scheme whereby young doctors, about half of whom go on to a hospital career, can spend some of their pre-registration year as house officers working in general practice. But such examples are relatively rare. At the level of specialist training for doctors, while the quality of such training has improved, there is now almost too great an emphasis on expertise in a single specialty. This is too narrow an approach. In their 20s and 30s, many young hospital doctors training to be specialists need to have regular opportunities to train with others in other areas of medicine, and with other healthcare professionals with whom they will share the membership of a team later on. This is equally true of established healthcare professionals for whom, we believe, there should be more opportunities to train and learn together in areas of shared concern. For example, it should be the norm for surgical teams (the surgeon, anaesthetist, theatre nurses, operating department assistants) to have time together, and with other teams such as those in the Intensive Care Unit, to review and develop their performance as a team. We also believe that there should be many more courses within the curricula of continuing professional development which are open to professionals from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds. The days when courses were designed exclusively for doctors, or exclusively for nurses, should be behind us. What matters is that those caring for patients with a particular condition or illness learn and develop their skills together to provide the best possible care for their patients.