How VCHP is forging a successful partnership with Plymouth optometry students

The Vision Care for Homeless People (VCHP) team in Plymouth is hoping to set a benchmark for clinics across the country with its new approach to volunteer recruitment.

The clinic, which is based at the Shekinah Mission in Stonehouse Creek, had started to a forge a relationship with Plymouth University’s optometry school before its doors opened in January this year.

Now, a strong partnership has formed, with students from all four years of the MOptom (Hons) Optometry course signing up to volunteer their time.

“We’ve had students involved, in terms of interest, right from the start,” Natasha Hudson, Plymouth clinic outreach coordinator with VCHP, told OT.

VCHP has not routinely recruited students in the past, largely due to the logistical coordination required to support them effectively in clinic settings, Hudson explained.

However, the collaboration in Plymouth is helping to reconsider some of the organisation’s usual approaches.

“If we have an experienced volunteer in place, it creates a great opportunity to bring a student in alongside them,” she said. “It means the student can gain valuable hands-on experience and training in a supported environment.”

The partnership has been driven forward by Stephen Pratt, volunteers administrator and former Plymouth clinic team lead at VCHP, and Claire Gorman, academic lead in optometry at Plymouth, alongside Hudson.

“VCHP has developed this really great partnership with the students,” Gorman said.

“We’ve always been quite keen in trying to get some students out on placement,” she added, noting that the opening of the Plymouth VCHP clinic gave an extra impetus to recruit students to volunteer locally.

Gorman advertised internally to staff and students at the university, and found immediate interest, with some students attending the clinic’s launch in November 2024.

“The VCHP team got quite a few of our students saying, ‘we’re not qualified, but we’d love to come in and be able to support in some way,” Gorman said.

VCHP was then able to share opportunities with students, letting them know where they could fit in – including in performing optical assistant roles and shadowing dispensing opticians in the clinic.

“The idea is, one, they get some hands-on dispensing experience, and two, they get used to the communication that’s needed,” Gorman told OT.

“It’s a much more dedicated, personable approach, in these more specialised patient groups, than you would get otherwise.”

She added: “Whilst students aren’t qualified to be in the testing room yet, we are very keen for them to get involved in developing their dispensing skills and being exposed to a variety of patient groups.”

The student volunteers and VCHP staff also have a WhatsApp group where dispensing scenarios are discussed – creating “a brilliant learning and teaching experience,” Gorman said.

The Plymouth VCHP clinic opened in January 2025 and by March had 10 Plymouth University students fully on board to volunteer.

“They’re going in, just to see that experience of what the patient group is like, and how it can differ so vastly to High Street practice,” Gorman said.

Plymouth students focus on communication in patient-facing clinics in the third year of their degree, Gorman explained, “but in terms of these more specialised clinics and being exposed to the more vulnerable patient groups, this is the only opportunity that they currently get.”

The new education training requirements for optometry schools means that there is now more emphasis on being able to demonstrate that students can adapt and offer their services to any patient, Gorman said.

“For the students, the more exposure to a wide range of patient groups the better. Being involved in volunteer work will be a useful tool for them to have, and will support their learning through the new education scheme,” she added.

A long-term outlook

“The Plymouth clinic is emerging as a great example of innovation within the organisation,” Hudson said – noting that a new online booking system trialled there is now being rolled out across other VCHP clinics.

She hopes that working with students will continue to “challenge the norms and open up new ways of working – where we might not have thought to involve students before, now we can ask, ‘why not?’”

“As long as you’ve got a good clinic lead and people that are willing to teach and to share, you know it’s an equally beneficial relationship. It means that not only are we teaching and giving back, but we’re getting more volunteers.”

Hudson added: “It sets that precedent for giving back to the community, for involvement in using their skills and sharing in whatever way they can. I think it goes beyond VCHP, in fostering that feeling of giving back in whatever way they do in the future.”

For Gorman, the benefits are both long and short-term.

“Long-term, we’d like the to be able to offer all our students the opportunity to go in and experience it,” she said.

“I think the earlier they are exposed to additional support clinics for vulnerable patients, the more likely they are to continue it once they’re fully qualified.

“If they’re already used to that volunteer aspect, and they can see the impact it has, then doing it on a day off, once a month, won’t seem such a mammoth task once they’re in practice.”

She added: “I hope it means that they consider it in the future when they are qualified.”

In the short-term, “it opens their eyes to what the real world is like,” Gorman believes.

She added: “Lots of our students come to university with little or no optometry experience, this gives them the opportunity to see a different side to primary care optometry.”

Hudson told OT: “Supporting a charity is more than just supporting that clinic. It is outreach, it is communication; it is remembering them.

“I’d like to believe that outreach is really for everybody. It’s not just about volunteering your time – it’s volunteering to be a representative, and to get the name out there. We need the volunteers, but we also need the people to be coming and using the services. People need to know that the organisation exists and that the clinic is there.”

She added: “I think outreach in general is that other bit of volunteering. The responsibility goes across the board.”