School of Health & Psychological Sciences wins funding from London Higher 2023/24

Three projects by City, University of London, London South Bank University (LSBU) and King’s College London, aimed at benefitting London-based healthcare education with the potential to enhance the London healthcare economy, have been awarded funding by London Higher following a successful competitive bid.

City’s winning project, Interprofessional Reflective Practice Project (IRPP), started in 2020 to enable trainees from years two and three of the Professional Doctorate in Counselling Psychology (‘CP trainees’) to facilitate reflective practice groups for GSTT GP trainees (‘GP trainees’) across all years of training.

IRPP will involve researching and using the evidence gathered to assess the effectiveness and impact of this work in the areas of well-being, professional identity, increased understanding between groups, collaboration and communication.

London Higher is an ‘umbrella’ body representing nearly 50 universities and higher education colleges in London, as well as a range of alternative providers and campus centres. It is the largest and most varied of the regional university associations and networks in the UK.

Dr Fran Smith Lecturer in the Department of Psychology, City, University of London and recipient of some of the funding said:

Our teams from City, University of London’s ‘School of Health and Psychological Sciences’ and Health Education England GP specialist training at Guys and St Thomas’ trust are delighted to have been awarded the funding from LHEG/LMED’s annual grant. This funding will enable us to deliver, evaluate and hopefully expand our ‘Interprofessional Reflective Practice Project’ (IRPP). In the IRPP, trainees from the 3-year Professional Doctorate in Counselling Psychology facilitate regular reflective practice groups GP trainees across all years of their training providing both cohorts valuable training experiences. We will ensure that this funding directly benefits these two trainee cohorts as well as actively promotes the culture of interdisciplinary working and reflective practice in London-based healthcare education.  We hope that effective evaluation and dissemination of this project will build a case for further expansion of the IRPP model, both to other GP specialist training schemes, as well as to other healthcare trainee groups across London.

Jolanta Edwards, Director of Strategy at London Higher and healthcare and medicine lead said:

It is brilliant to see this funding going to projects that have the potential to positively impact London’s healthcare education. We hope that the funding awarded today will help our healthcare and medicine-focused members address the future needs of this sector at a time when it is most crucial, and ensure that London’s healthcare education sector remains of the best quality that it can be.

Professor Katherine Curtis, Interim Dean, Faculty of Health, Science, Social Care and Education at Kingston University and Chair of London Higher’s healthcare group said:

The LHEG/LMED Project fund bids were a pleasure to read.  We received 6 excellent bids showing creative and collaborative approaches to education innovation, and sadly could not fund them all. They demonstrated the potential to work across health disciplines and make a difference in London healthcare education. We are nonetheless delighted to be able to give funding to three of these bids and look forward to watching how these projects develop.

City’s capacity to deliver healthcare training will be enhanced by this investment and help deliver highly skilled graduates to the healthcare workplace.

If successful, IRPP can be rolled out to other London-based GP specialist training schemes and healthcare trainee groups.

Written by Chiara Petrini Rossi, Communications Assistant at City, University of London.