Practice Learning Partners

We work in close partnership with our local Practice Learning Partners, who provide placement experiences for students. Our Practice Learning Partners are sited across Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Berkshire, and Cambridgeshire. They include hospitals, care homes, mental health providers, community providers and those within the private, independent and voluntary sector.

Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust incorporates Bedford Hospital and Luton and Dunstable University Hospital. The Trust, caring for a population of around 620,000 people in and around Bedfordshire, came into operation, following the merger of Bedford Hospital NHS Trust and the Luton and Dunstable University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is responsible for managing services at both Bedford and Luton with each individual hospital retaining its name and proud heritage.

The integrated Trust brings together a combined workforce of approximately 8,000 staff and will be the largest NHS employer in Bedfordshire. The organisation continues to deliver a full range of services on both sites. This includes retaining key services such as A&E, Obstetrics-led Maternity and Paediatrics at Bedford.

Milton Keynes University Hospital (MKUH) NHS Foundation Trust is a medium sized district hospital that provides a full range of acute hospital services and an increasing number of specialist services to the growing population of Milton Keynes and the surrounding areas. With around 550 beds and employing more than 4,000 staff, the hospital sees and treats appropriately 400,000 patients each year, comprising of both outpatient and emergency attendances.

All inpatient services and most outpatient services are provided on the main hospital site. The Trust is organised into four clinical divisions (medicine, surgery, women and children and core clinical) and a number of corporate directorates.

Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust has around 6,000 highly-trained, qualified doctors, nurses, midwives, health visitors, therapist, healthcare scientists and other support staff caring for more than half a million patients from Buckinghamshire and neighbouring counties every year.

They deliver this care in a range of ways; from community health services provided in people’s home or from one of their local bases, to hospitals at Stoke Mandeville, Wycombe and Amersham.

The Trust are proud of the nationally recognised services they provide. Stoke Mandeville Hospital is home to the internationally recognised National Spinal Injuries Centre; their stroke service is one of the best in the region and they are a regional centre for burn care, plastic surgery and dermatology.

Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust (HCT) is the principal provider of community-based healthcare services to the 1.2 million population of Hertfordshire. They have over 2,000 staff and deliver a wide range of high quality health services to people in their homes, in local clinics, in schools and in community hospitals located across the county.

The Trust support people at every stage of their lives, from health visiting and school nursing services for children and young people to community nursing, rehabilitation and palliative care. They work in partnership with colleagues across NHS, social care, education, charities and local government helping people to maintain their independence for as long as possible and making sure people get the right care in the right place at the right time.

Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust provide health and social care for over 400,000 people with mental ill health, physical ill health and learning disabilities across Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Norfolk and North Essex. They employ nearly 3,000 staff who deliver these services within the community as well inpatient settings.

The Trust also deliver a range of nationally commissioned specialist services including Tier 4 services for children and young people, perinatal services and medium and low secure learning disabilities services.

West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust provides acute healthcare services to a core catchment population of approximately half a million people living in west Hertfordshire and the surrounding area. Overall, the population served by the trust is relatively affluent, but there are some areas of deprivation.

The Trust also provides a range of more specialist services to a wider population, serving residents of North London, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and East Hertfordshire.

As an employer of almost 5,000 people the trust is one of the biggest employers in the area and sees nearly a million patients each year.

The East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust are proud of the range of general and specialist services they provide. They have around 5,000 dedicated staff ensuring that patients get the best care. The Trust are committed to ensuring that they encourage and enable their staff to provide healthcare services in the most sustainable way possible, and involve patients, visitors and the wider public in helping them meet the challenge.

Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust provides NHS hospital services for around 900,000 people across Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey and south Buckinghamshire.

The Trust’s aim is to provide the highest quality healthcare possible. As well as delivering excellent general hospital services to local people, they provide specialist heart attack, vascular, stroke, spinal, cystic fibrosis and plastic surgery services across a much wider area.

They have three main hospitals - Frimley Park in Frimley near Camberley, Heatherwood in Ascot and Wexham Park near Slough.

Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust provide physical, mental health and social care for people of all ages across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Swindon, Wiltshire, Bath and North East Somerset.

Their services are delivered at community bases, hospitals, clinics and in people’s homes and they focus on delivering care as close to home as possible.

The Trust strive to be caring, safe and excellent.

Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) is a world renowned centre of clinical excellence and one of the largest NHS teaching trusts in the UK. The Trust is made up of four hospitals - the John Radcliffe Hospital (which includes the Children's Hospital, West Wing, Eye Hospital, Heart Centre and Women's Centre), the Churchill Hospital and the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, all located in Oxford, and the Horton General Hospital in Banbury, north Oxfordshire.

They provide a wide range of clinical services, specialist services (including cardiac, cancer, musculoskeletal and neurological rehabilitation) medical education, training and research.

Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT) was formed on 1 April 2017 following the merger of North Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (NEP) and South Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (SEPT).

EPUT provide community health, mental health and learning disability services for a population of approximately 1.3 million people throughout Bedfordshire, Essex, Suffolk and Luton.
They employ 5,000 members of staff across 200 sites.

Originally formed in 2000, ELFT has long been recognised as a centre of excellence for mental health care, innovation and improvement. Their ambition is to make a positive difference by providing people with mental and community health care services that support their recovery and help them to achieve the most fulfilling lives possible.

The Trust’s 5,500 staff are at the heart of the operation and provide £390 million worth of services from over 100 community and inpatient sites. Wherever possible they aim to provide people with alternatives to hospital admission so that they can receive their care close to home, while remaining as independent as possible.

The East London population totals around 750,000 and the Trust are proud to serve one of the most culturally diverse parts of the UK. In Bedfordshire and Luton, they are now responsible for a further 630,000 people’s mental health and community health (Bedfordshire only) care needs.

CNWL has almost 7,000 staff providing integrated healthcare to a third of London's population, Milton Keynes and areas beyond. They employ approximately 7,000 staff to provide more than 300 different health services across 150 sites and in many other community settings. Types of services include physical health; mental health; learning disabilities; eating disorders; addictions; sexual health; and prison and offender care.

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT) are dedicated to providing high quality care with compassion. The Trust provide integrated physical and mental health services for adults and older people; specialist mental health and learning disability services; children and young people’s mental health services; children’s community services (Peterborough); social care; and ground-breaking research.

They support a population of just under a million people and employ nearly 4,000 staff. Their biggest bases are at the Cavell Centre, Peterborough, and Fulbourn Hospital, Cambridge, but staff are based in more than 50 locations.

Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust are proud to provide high quality services that enable people to live healthier lives and receive care closer to home.

The Trust provide an extensive portfolio of services including a range of children’s services to children, young people and families; school age immunisation programme; iCaSH: Integrated Contraception and Sexual Health Services; dental services; Dynamichealth musculoskeletal services and pelvic health physiotherapy services; and Children and Adults’ Community Health services.

They believe that community based health services are fundamental to the success of an NHS that gives people more choice and control over their health.

The East of England Ambulance Service provide 24 hour, 365 days a year accident and emergency services to those in need of emergency medical treatment and transport in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.

The Trust also provide non-emergency patient transport services for patients needing non-emergency transport to and from hospital, treatment centres and other similar facilities and who can't travel unaided because of their medical condition or frailty.

The Trust has more than 4,000 staff and more than 1,500 volunteers and in 2018-19 received more than one million emergency calls and treated 64,157 people through their Emergency Clinical Advice and Triage Centre.

South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust (SCAS) is part of the National Health Service (NHS). They were established on the 1 July 2006 following the merger of four ambulance trusts. On 1 March 2012 they became a foundation trust. Their emergency operations centres handle around half a million emergency and urgent calls each year.

They serve the counties of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire, and Sussex and Surrey for NEPTS. They provide traditional 999 emergency services, as well as non-emergency patient transport services, NHS 111 services and logistics, commercial and training services across Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey and Sussex, serving a population of 7 million people.

Bedfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group are an NHS organisation responsible for planning, organising and buying NHS-funded healthcare for around 450,000 people who live in Bedford Borough and Central Bedfordshire areas.

These services include hospital services; community health services; and mental health services.

Bedfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (BCCG) is clinically-led which means they are run by GPs, nurses, hospital doctors and other clinicians. They are a membership organisation, made up of 48 GP practices from across Bedfordshire.

Bedfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group Website

NHS Herts Valleys Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) was created in 2013 to organise the delivery of healthcare to 627,000 people living in west Hertfordshire.

CCGs are made up of our local GPs and other healthcare professionals and are responsible for ‘commissioning’ – planning, designing and paying for NHS services. They work to help people stay well and to improve NHS services to meet the needs of local patients.

The Group work with local health and social care organisations, patients and residents to make decisions about how their budget is spent and how services are provided. They contract with a range of different providers to deliver services. These include planned and emergency hospital care, rehabilitation, most community services, general practice and mental health and learning disability services.

They oversee how services are provided to make sure services are of a high quality, easy for patients to access and are joined up with other services that look after people.