Introduction:
Clinical placement is a vital component of midwifery education in the United Kingdom (UK) as well as in other countries. Practice supervision plays a core role in the clinical placement aspect of learning outcomes for midwifery students. Recent systematic review findings showed that clinical placements present may have challenges related to practice supervision in the professional development and learning outcomes of Black, Asian, And Minority Ethnic (BAME) healthcare students (midwifery, nursing, and medicine) in various developed countries¹. Very little is currently known about the practice supervision experiences of BAME midwifery students in the UK². Therefore, the study aims to describe the perceptions and experiences of the practice supervision from BAME undergraduate midwifery students in clinical placements in a UK context.

Material and Methods:
The cross-sectional study was conducted between November 2022 and March 2023 in seven universities with undergraduate midwifery programs. The previously validated instruments the ‘Clinical Learning Environment Supervision and Nurse Teacher Tool’ (CLES+T) and Cultural and Linguistic Diversity Scale (CALDs) scale were used. The online survey also consisted of demographic data such as age, gender, and educational level. Data were entered in IBM Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 28.0.1.1 and was further analysed by using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics.

Results:
All students (N = 1268) were invited across the seven universities, where it is estimated 254 of them identified as BAME. According to the initial findings of the study (March 2023), a total of 81 students submitted responses. All respondents identified as female. BAME respondents were more likely to come from London or Southeast England (39.6% and 30.6%). Of the 56 BAME respondents, 37 (45.5%) identified as Black African, Black Caribbean or Black British and 22 ( 27.5%) as Asian/Asian British. The rest were either of mixed or another heritage. The majority of participants were highly satisfied with the clinical learning environment (58%) and ward atmosphere (54%), however, almost all students (77%) were dissatisfied with the supervisory relationship.

Conclusions:
BAME midwifery students can face additional challenges which have an impact on clinical learning. Given the significant correlation between learning environments and midwifery students and practice supervisors need to build a good clinical teaching atmosphere and promote opportunities for theoretical and practical connections. Therefore, further studies with various methods are needed, such as in-depth interviews with BAME students’ experience of practice supervision in clinical placements.