Clinical Placements information

Page Last Updated 15 Feb 2021 4:13pm

Victoria entered Stage 4 restrictions on 11.59pm Friday 12 February 2021 until 11.59pm Wednesday 17 February 2021.

Currently, the Victorian Department of Health remains supportive of clinical placements in medical/nursing/midwifery/allied health fields continuing, including throughout the current 5 day lock-down. As such, we are supporting ongoing clinical placements until further notice.

However, you should not undertake a clinical placement at a health service or residential care facility if you have undertaken a placement, worked at or volunteered at a hotel quarantine site and/or other port of entry within the last 14 days. This is the latest advice from the Department of Health.

If you have worked in quarantine hotels or ports of entry in the last 14 days please inform your placement provider. We also encourage you to disclose any work in hotel quarantine to your course coordinators so that they can support you and advise on any potential impact on course progression due to your exclusion from placement.

You should follow the advice of your placement provider while on placement. Your placement provider will advise whether it is appropriate for you to be on placement, and there may be certain instances where you’ll be required to leave for your safety or the safety of others.

We understand you may have concerns about your course progression if your placement has been affected by the pandemic. All health disciplines in the Faculty are aware of the need to be flexible and supportive of diminished time for student placements during this period. However, your course is designed to prepare you to become a registered and/or professionally accredited practitioner, which means that for many of you, clinical placements are mandatory. Your course progression could be affected if you choose to opt-out from now on.

If your placement has been impacted, you may need to make up placement hours during intensive catch-ups, which may overlap with University breaks.

Our programs have varying levels of flexibility due to varied accreditation requirements. As such, it's important to stay in contact with your Unit and Course Coordinators who are sharing discipline-specific information with you directly. They will let you know which aspects of your studies are mandatory.

If possible, your placements should be within one health service provider to reduce the risk of transmission between services. If you have placements at more than one location, please ensure all your site coordinators are aware of this so that they can take it into account in their risk mitigations.

Staying safe on placement

The health, safety,  and course progression of all our students, including those completing approved course-related clinical placements, is our top priority.

  • If you're on placement and you enter environments with patients who are known or suspected to have COVID-19, you must have completed Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) training and be wearing appropriate PPE.
  • You are to follow the advice of your placement site coordinator or supervisor on the use of personal protective equipment, social distancing, and hygiene measures.
  • Given that there is risk of exposure in all placement settings, you can choose to opt-out of placement and we will support you to re-engage with placement later in the year by extending the time available to complete your placement unit/s.
  • If required for course completion, we will support any student who opts-out to re-engage with placement later in their course by extending the time available to complete their placement unit/s.
  • We are currently prioritising placements for our senior students to facilitate their course progression towards accreditation and registration.
  • For students of all years, we will reschedule catch-up placements in 2020 and 2021 where possible. This will depend on the discipline-specific requirements and the availability of placements.
  • Students in clinical placements should only be at the health service provider premises solely for clinical experience. This is the contractual arrangement between the provider and the University. No coercion or pressure, perceived or real, is to be placed on students to perform work or activity for any roles outside their clinical placement.