I am a nurse redeployed to front line but until that was in education role, a part of which was supporting clinical areas so they could take student nurses.
All HCP students are being asked to opt-in to emergency expansion of the workforce- this includes medical students, nurses, OTs, physios and other AHPs. This is a four nation inititaive and all the health care regulatory bodies have signed an agreeement supporting it. No offence - but the AHPs/associated universities offering these courses have been much slower to respond that nurses, midwives and medics.
Essentially there is no capacity to support health care students as learners during the crisis. I can only speak with authority about student nurses. They are normally supernumerary i.e. not counted in staffing numbers. That requirement has been removed. They will still be supervised in clinical areas but not to the level they would have been prior to the crisis. This effectively means they either go out as non-supernumeray student on a paid health care support worker contract or they take a hiatus and continue their studies after the crisis.
No-one can be forced to do this. If your DD doesn't want to pay/do distance learning, she should request a temporary withdrawal from her programme and re-start when its over. This will likely mean she graduates later than she would have normally, but there is no perfect solution to the crisis.
And it is not just student nurses about to qualify - it is all student nurse except first years. Year 2s placements have also stopped so they too have been asked to opt-in to paid employment and be a non-supernumerary student. For year 2, the NMC requirement to have a 50-50 split between theory and practice has been changed to allow an 80-20% split with 80% being clinical hours. The "missing" theory will need to be caught up in year 3 and the NMC will demand to see evidence of that.
Of the students I have worked with, around 95% want to take join the expanding the workforce initiative. Of the rest, some are shielding/high risk, carrying academic or clinical fails or have chosen not to opt-in.
Students continuing on their studies will absolutely not be expected to continue after the start of the academic year. The continuation past that is for those who are nearly qualified to be kept on in the workforce until their registration with their professional body comes through, which normally takes around six weeks from their application after the official end of their programme. Also - there is no guarantee that Unis will start again in September as normal - some are looking to defer the new academic year as far back as January next year.
I have to say, most students are cock-a-hoop about it all as they are getting paid to do what they would otherwise have done "for free". The students who are high risk are livid they cannot do it. Some students will be getting around £25k and their paperwork signed off!
It is an awful situation all round but as I say, there is no perfect solution. I appreciate it is different for your DD as she is not a student nurse and will be doing stuff that is maybe not directly relevant to her programme. But rather than focussing on what won't happen, can she try to think about what she could gain from this? We are living through history and as scary as it is, health care students will gain masses of experience working through this. It won't be for everybody and some will cope better than others (not meant to be insulting or suggesting those who don't cope as well are somehow less worthy as it is a fact of life that we are all different). Your DD needs to think about the best approach for her whilst remembering that she will still qualify as an OT at some point - just now when she had hoped.
It also sounds like her Uni is not providing enough information. Our local Uni has already said that those opting-in can live in accomodation for a reduced rate over the summer as they normally rent out to tourists but that won't be happening this year.