An exploratory study of using a digital toolkit designed to support pre-registration health care students to develop awareness of person-centred approaches to care

Person-centred care (PCC) has become an integral part of health education with many incorporating this into curricula (McCormack et al, 2022). However, PCC can require whole scale revisions of programmes of study which can lead to difficulties in time and navigating quality processes (Moore et al, 2023). In the UK, continued workforce shortages have led to pressure on healthcare educators to increase student numbers, (NHS England, 2023). This has exacerbated challenges with learning spaces and equipment availability (Powers, 2020) often leading to the introduction of small-scale interventions to increase coverage of PCC without whole scale changes. Digital technology offers potential solutions to these challenges with increasing numbers in health education turning to these approaches (Knudsen Oddvang et al, 2021; Liao et al, 2022).

This paper sought to explore the impact of one such small-scale digital toolkit on student confidence and awareness of PCC. Although limited in nature, results indicated positive changes in confidence levels related to PCC overall with a mixed picture when looking at specific aspects. The digital toolkit helped to facilitate discussion related to delivering of PCC and overall provided students with easy access to these resources. A similar intervention may be used for the education of a variety of healthcare professionals and in support of interprofessional learning (Malone, Hebbard and Benham, 2022).