Dr. Breda McTaggart:

I agree with everything my colleagues have said. The difficulty is that if there is any deficit at all during the learning experience in terms of good quality supervision, it makes it more difficult to get people into very complex roles. Anecdotally, it seems this is compounded by the fact there are many acting posts. Sometimes it is difficult for people to commit to giving us placements because people are in acting roles and they do not want to commit in case they are not appointed to the role. We try to get people into settings to work, and teams may not fully gel because people are a little unsure. In our experience in the north west, there are a couple of people more than willing to assist us but they are in acting positions. I do know how long the process normally takes, but those acting positions act as a slight barrier for the people taking students on placement. If people are moving around, as has happened in my career, it can become very difficult to stabilise the team. I do not know if there are any statistics on that, but I am sure there are. In the north west we are hearing, anecdotally, about people in acting posts having an impact both on students going on placement and, I am sure, on the teams themselves. That comes from posts not being confirmed or the wait for recruitment drives. It is our experience in the north west.