I have just read all your posts and DD is on the same course, though intercalating (another expense!) at the moment.
When flat hunting she might say that she is willing to take the smallest room in return for a lower rent. There are cheaper properties, and medical students are popular. It is worth keeping a close eye on properties advertised on the med student network, which are passed down from one generation to the next.
You should also note that the first term is long and tends to be more expensive. The kit costs and membership fees for University sports were quite shocking. Second and third terms are cheaper.
I am a landlord, and used to helping new tenants (often expats) set up utilities. I went down with DD when she rented her second year flat and we scrubbed the place from top to bottom (it was very cheap...for a reason), made careful annotations on the inventory, and looked at price comparison sites for utilities and broadband, and getting a referral for the latter which gave additional discounts. They reckoned their bills were half what others were paying, and they got their full deposit back.
Having friends who are careful with their money is good. Whether you are a student or not, trying to keep up with those who are better off is a recipe for disaster. Once the second year is over they will spend six month at a time on placement often in hospital accommodation. The routine was to head for Morisons and look for yellow sticky labels and then cook together. Other than go to the gym there was not much else to do, especially as they had early starts and long days. .
I hear, though can't be sure how accurate this is, that if a student is really short of money the medical school will give them priority for two fourth year placements outside Bristol which means that they can live in free hospital accommodation and don't need to rent at all. DD also says that many students wait till summer when they know what their placements will be until deciding on third/fourth/fifth year accommodation and counting on the fact that rooms do become free.
One problem with Bristol, that does not seem to happen elsewhere, is that they have quite a lot of teaching in the summer after exams or before the September term starts. (Indeed poor DD found this year that the summer school for her intercalation and the post exam Bristol stuff overlapped and she was technically in two places at once, albeit in her bedroom.) I would not count on earning much during the summer.