Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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730. To ask the Minister for Health if he will provide a full list of all medical professions that require a clinical placement as part of their education and qualification in the respective field; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15338/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Please find below, a list of regulated health and social care professions that require a clinical placement as part of their education and qualification. I trust this is the information required by the Deputy.

Regulated Health & Social Care Professions requiring Clinical Placements as part of training and education

Pharmacy

Since September 2015, students commencing a pharmacist qualification in Ireland are undertaking a Masters degree programme in pharmacy, which is an integrated education and training programme with a range of practical placements dispersed over the course of the programme. This programme, involves the integration and dispersal of practice placements for students throughout the five years (rather than solely during the final year). The restructured qualification enables placements of varying durations in the three main areas of pharmacy practice; community, hospital and industry. This includes placements in community and hospital pharmacies during second, fourth and fifth year and placements in industry and other practice areas (health service, regulatory etc.) in the fourth year. Placements for the five-year programme are managed by APPEL (Affiliation for Pharmacy Practice Experiential Learning), which was established by the three Schools of Pharmacy in Ireland to manage and centralise the learning placements for students from each of the schools.

Nursing

Undergraduate nursing and midwifery education programmes require students to undertake mandatory practice placements as a requirement for the attainment of clinical competencies. These mandatory practice placements account for over 50% of the entire four-year undergraduate programme. Students on all nursing and midwifery placements including General Nursing; Children’s and General Nursing; Mental Health Nursing; Disability Nursing and Midwifery complete a minimum of 81 weeks of practice placements. Placement sites are chosen by the undergraduate programme provider to best support the student to acquire specific clinical competencies.

Practice placements for student nurses and midwives account for a minimum of 81 weeks of the entire four-year undergraduate programme and students have a minimum of four hours protected time for reflection each week throughout the undergraduate programme. Forty-five weeks of mandatory supernumerary practice placements occur from year one of the programme right through to the first semester of year four. These students are not employees and are additional to the workforce in a learning capacity. Student nurses and midwives’ final year internship placement consists of a continual 36-week rostered clinical placement, including annual leave for which they are paid. The salary is reflective of intern nursing and midwifery students being paid employees for this 36 week placement, and included in the workforce as 0.5 WTE. During the internship period, students remain under distant supervision of a registered nurse, and are assigned a caseload as part of the students clinical learning requirement.

EMT, Paramedic, Advanced Paramedic Training

The Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council (PHECC) is the independent statutory body who sets the standards for education and training for pre-hospital emergency care in Ireland. The Council publishes clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) and recognises institutions to provide pre-hospital emergency care training and education. In addition to maintaining a statutory register of pre-hospital emergency care practitioners in Ireland, the Council also approves Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Service Providers to implement PHECC CPG’s. To register with PHECC a practitioner must hold a recognised National Qualification in Emergency Medical Technology (NQEMT) or equivalent. There are three distinct NQEMT qualifications for EMT, Paramedic and Advanced Paramedic that range in duration from 5 Weeks for EMT to 21 Months for Advanced Paramedic. All three levels of NQEMT require students to undergo a period of Clinical Placement at an approved healthcare site or with an approved ambulance service location in order to qualify. The minimumClinical Placement periods for each NQEMT level are – EMT- 1 Week; Paramedic - 70 Weeks (18 Weeks Clinical Instruction and 52 Weeks Internship); Advanced Paramedic – 64 Weeks (12 Weeks Clinical Instruction and 52 Weeks Internship).

Medicine - doctors

All medical degrees include clinical placements. Clinical placements do not usually begin until a medical student's third year of study. In the past, this would be marked by a “White Coat” ceremony – though nowadays the white coats are merely symbolic as they are rarely worn by trainees or doctors any more. The duration of clinical placements varies from one medical school to another, depending on how their curriculum is designed.

When a doctor qualifies they do a year-long internship, the intern year in Ireland is a one-year period of structured clinical training immediately following graduation from medical school. Upon completion, trainees are provided a certificate of experience. The Certificate of Experience (COE) is a document which confirms that a doctor has successfully completed their internship to the standards set by the Medical Council. This may be followed by specialist training that takes place in a clinical setting, wherein the NCHD or specialist trainee doctor participates in a structured training programme.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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731. To ask the Minister for Health to provide in tabular form the number of clinical placements places in each medical profession; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15339/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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In relation to the particular query raised, as this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the Deputy directly, as soon as possible.