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The British Medical Association is the trade union and professional body for doctors in the UK.

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Medical students on clinical placements cannot be asked to fulfil the role of a junior doctor during strike action

As a medical student, you should not be asked to fulfil the role of a junior doctor during strike action. You may receive offers to work to cover junior doctors during industrial actions. If you do, please refuse and notify the BMA.

Remember, clinical placements are arrangements where a student is present for educational purposes in an environment that provides healthcare or related services to patients. As part of your clinical placement, you should have a timetable with teaching opportunities, know what the learning outcomes of your placement are, and receive a local induction from your placement provider.

You should also be given information on how to raise safety or quality concerns, and information on how to access support networks, such as wellbeing services.

If you are undertaking a student assistantship

The GMC's guidance on undergraduate clinical placements confirms that student assistantships are a type of clinical placement undertaken towards the end of your training and designed to help prepare you for Foundation Year 1. Although some direct care of patients is implicit and necessary, it remains primarily an educational experience. It should provide a number of hands-on learning experiences that allow you to work within clinical settings and to practise clinical skills. If undertaking an assistantship, you should be fully integrated within a clinical team and should be responsible for carrying out specified duties under appropriate supervision.

You will be expected to participate in activities like those of a newly qualified doctor but have clear learning outcomes relating to the tasks you are asked to perform. This includes working on calls, out of hours and learning to manage workload due to winter pressures or crisis situations. However, this should not impact on your experience or learning during the assistantship. You shouldn't be required to work extra shifts due to service pressure, including any service pressure related to industrial action.

What you should do if you get asked to undertake tasks outside of your competence during industrial action

During periods of industrial action, if you feel you are being asked to undertake any tasks that sit outside the agreed learning outcomes of your placement, or that are not properly supervised, you should raise this with both your clinical supervisor and educational supervisor. You must be supervised to be safe, and act within your competence and capability at all times. This includes any periods of pressure experienced by the service you are learning in, including service pressures created by other healthcare workers taking industrial action.

You should stop immediately if, at any time, you're concerned about your level of supervision, or you're being expected to work beyond your level of competency. You should speak to your named clinical supervisor and medical school about these concerns. Medical schools are responsible for making sure medical students have an alternative named clinical supervisor if the planned supervisor is not available. You can also seek advice and support from the BMA.

You should always be treated fairly and respectfully, regardless of your background or protected characteristics, not experience bullying, harassment or undue pressure, but it should be taken seriously if this does occur. Your safety is paramount within the placement. Guidance on undergraduate clinical placements from the GMC sets out what is expected of all medical schools, placement providers and medical students.

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Guidance for medical students during industrial action

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Medical students on clinical placements cannot be asked to fulfil the role of a junior doctor during strike action As a medical student, you should not be asked to fulfil the role of a junior doctor during strike action. You may receive offers to work to cover junior doctors during industrial actions.

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Will we get any extra placement time to make up for the lack of support we will receive on placement if this negatively impacts progression with our mini-cex and dops

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Why aren’t placements cancelled? We will be in a service that is under a lot of pressure with the strikes and patient care should come first. We will be jnr doctors soon and this strike is for us and our future. Why can’t we be like other med schools who see that and have cancelled/ made placements optional?

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I am concerned that on strike days we are going to be asked to do things like bloods, cannulas, ABG’s and other tasks like clerking patients. Obviously on any other normal day this would be fine however a lot of us personally feel doing these tasks which the juniors would usually do would undermine the strikes. We will hopefully all be qualifying this year so the outcome of these strikes will affect us in the future. Therefore, would it be acceptable for us to attend placements to learn by observing for the period of the strikes and decline any bloods, cannulas etc that need doing in order to not undermine and effective “cover” the work of the juniors.

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We're being put in such an uncomfortable position. The strikes are so important for the wellbeing of our colleagues...and us in the future. We know there might be more strikes and more learning might be missed. We also know that placement recovery will happen and we will be given time to make up any missed learning and assessments, but that should not be the focus. Please reconsider cancelling placements, or just letting us observe placement activity, this is much bigger. Please listen to us, it's important to us.

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For those students who have been informed their placements are cancelled/told not to attend placement, will this affect their total attendance for the rotation or will these days be excluded from the attendance %? As in Year 4, we fail the ICU/ require placement recovery if attendance falls below 80%.

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What do we do if we are allocated to clinics and on call shadowing the reg or SHO?

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Please consider the power dynamics between stressed out consultants and students on placement, it is very hard NOT to act up when a consultant asks you directly to do something. We are undermining the strikes by being present on placement and most of us are extremely uncomfortable. Please do the professional thing and cancel placement like many other Universities and as requested by Doctors Association UK.

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By not making a clear statement on where the university stands, different placement providers have been saying different things, even within the same trust. My colleagues on other placements in the same hospital have been told they have to come in, whereas I haven't. Other hospitals have told 5th years not to come in entirely. There is a massive discrepancy among students' placement experience. The only way to rectify this in a way that supports our future profession is to make a clear cut statement for every student on every placement not to go in.

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In regards to being told to attend placement during strikes. We are repeatedly told to "act within our competency" as a form of medicolegal defense. We are told to say no to requests that put us outside of the competency of a 5th year medical student. What is the exact list of examples that an FY1/2 does that falls outside of our competency. There is common fear that as there is no clear list, we will be used as free service provision and undermine our future colleagues and ourselves. If placement will not be cancelled, can a blanket rule be applied that medical students will only attend in a pure observatory capacity during these days?

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On placement today I have been told two different things about attending next week. I was told that they didn’t know what the Uni position was. If information has been shared it hasn’t been effectively cascaded and people aren’t sure what is happening now, so will be just as confused next week when it will be very hectic. We will be the ones negatively impacted by this inconsistency. As others have said, please cancel the placements to ensure a fair and equitable experience for all of us and to support the strikes.

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Inconsistent cancellation of placements 

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Inconsistent cancellation of placements 

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Genuine question - Why are 3rd year placements cancelled but not 5th year?

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For those of us in Bradford, we are starting our new rotation next week so we will be in a new clinical area. I don't feel comfortable to be starting on a new rotation with inadequate supervision and support.

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Year 5 Bradford placement: we will all be starting a completely new rotation and speciality. How will you ensure our safety on a new rotation?

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As a year 5 student, I generally spend my ward days conducting junior doctor jobs - writing in notes on WR, clerking, bloods, cannulas, catheters, reviewing sick patients with juniors etc. On a normal day, this is a great learning opportunity and I feel part of the team. I would not feel comfortable doing any of these jobs during the strike days, as in doing this I would clearly be stepping in to the shoes of a junior doctor. If I attend placement I would either be put in an extremely uncomfortable position in saying 'no' to these jobs, or I would be undermining the strikes by doing them. These strikes could not affect myself and my peers more directly as we are so close to graduation.

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For those of us travelling hours to get to placement I’m worried about going in on strike days and not getting any valuable teaching. Staff will understandable be busy. I cannot afford to travel far for no reward. 

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For those of us travelling hours to get to placement I’m worried about going in on strike days and not getting any valuable teaching. Staff will understandable be busy. I cannot afford to travel far for no reward. 

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in the comms sent on 01/03 it is said that 'if you feel there is no support or supervision you may leave'. Does this include if you attend placement and are deprived of any meaningful teaching or learning aside from just following the consultant around all day, possibly in a group of 3/4 students which is very inconvenient?

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what about when doing tasks within your realm of confidence but if something does go wrong or you need help, as it often happens with students, then you have to drag the consultant doctor away from all the other tasks they are managing to help you and affect/slow patient care?

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what about when doing tasks within your realm of confidence but if something does go wrong or you need help, as it often happens with students, then you have to drag the consultant doctor away from all the other tasks they are managing to help you and affect/slow patient care?

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On the basis of what has been said.  I am afraid that I think that skill sets "within our competence"  are often within the competence of junior doctors obviously in very specific clinical skills (blood taking for example). Secondly, if the consultant asks you to clerk what they are saying on ward round - that could be portrayed as a "learning opportunity" in reality still may undermine strike action. The lines are blurred. 

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On the basis of what has been said.  I am afraid that I think that skill sets "within our competence"  are often within the competence of junior doctors obviously in very specific clinical skills (blood taking for example). Secondly, if the consultant asks you to clerk what they are saying on ward round - that could be portrayed as a "learning opportunity" in reality still may undermine strike action. The lines are blurred. 

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I think many of us already feel extremely demoralised and demotivated about joining the NHS as a junior doctor at the moment. These strikes feel like a chance for something to change, which will hopefully positively impact our future careers. Helping on the wards as we would normally do does feel that we may negatively impact the strikes.