Lucy Hallas, 21 a paramedic student from the University of Sunderland, has joined 33,318 other students in the fight for placement pay.
Lucy is currently located at a patient transport service in Pallion, near her university accommodation. Students at UoS are required to work weekends and bank holidays, which may make it difficult with her part time job.
Not getting paid doesn’t put Lucy off of her placement but she believes it would be a “great help”.
Lucy said: “My part time job is my source of income as well as my maintenance.”
She added: “There have been a lot of debates about this and I personally think it would be a good decision to make. I will have to do 12 or more hours a shift and it would feel like free labour.”
Health students at the University of Sunderland are required to complete 525 hours of clinical placement during the year to pass the course. The university tries to make sure that students who are able to drive are located further away from their residency and their placement doesn’t require a set number of hours to be completed in a week. Students completing placements are guaranteed a job; their time is described as a “three year interview”.
There are various different opportunities for student paramedics, such as working on a navy ship, in the royal navy or on a cruise ship.
A spokesperson for the University of Sunderland said:
“Placements are an ideal opportunity for students to get a feel for a job or industry which they hope to progress into after leaving university. If a student is undertaking a placement as part of their programme and it lasts one year there is no expectation of placement. This is set out in current government guidelines.”
Online petitions need 10,000 signatures for them to get a response from the government.If the petition then gets 100,000 signatures it will be considered for debate in parliament. MPs can either put the debates forward before they reach 100,000 signatures or deny them completely. On October 23, the government responded.
“The NMC state that student nurses undertaking practice learning are supernumerary. Students may perform limited clinical duties as part of learning but they are not contracted to provide nursing care.”