Interview/Personal statement dilemma

The nursing home won't be left without management in your contact's absence so potentially you could go to the place in person and speak to the manager on duty and see if they're still looking for volunteers. Maybe they could let you shadow a staff member even if they don't have a voluntary position immediately available.

Have a careful read through the admissions website pages for that particular course and see if the experience is just recommended rather than required. If the uni requesting the work experience has specified a mandatory amount of hours and you haven't actually done them it would in all likelihood make you in eligible for that one particular place.

The date you were accepted as a volunteer would still stand and you wouldn't be lying about that, it's perfectly acceptable to say that you made an arrangement and then due to unforeseen circumstances you weren't actually given the hours you had discussed with the manager. It might be worth printing off email correspondence that supports your claims. It's a different case if you "reflected" on your experiences as a volunteer within the personal statement though. I hope that the person that advised you to lie isn't in a position to be dishing out awful advice to other impressionable students.

Do you have anything else you can use for experience form, either through work, shadowing or a different voluntary activity?

Anyway, here's what UCAS have to say on giving misleading information:

"How we verify the information you provide

If we, or a university or college, have any reason to believe that you or your referee have:
◾left out any relevant information, including qualifications you have completed, qualifications with an unsuccessful grade or qualifications for which you are still awaiting results
◾given false or misleading information

we may take any necessary steps to check with you and other parties, including universities, colleges and examination and awarding bodies whether the information you have provided is accurate or complete.

We have the right to cancel your application without refunding your application fee if we determine (having carried out any necessary checks) or have reasonable belief that your application contains false information.

If you have any reason to believe that information we hold about you is not true, complete and accurate, you must tell us.

If we need to verify your identity, we may use details in your application by making checks using any official, publicly available or commercially available identity checking services. If any adverse information is revealed about you we will let you know so that you have an opportunity to respond."

I've tried but they said I need to do another DBS which could take weeks, and the interview at the medical school who want the form is in 3 weeks time...

Did you out rightly apeak about it in your personal statement or did you just mention that you are currently doing it - otherwise it wouldn't be as bad as you like saying what you've learnt from it without actually doing it.
Try multiple places or even see if you can just speak to a member of staff about their experience?
If worst comes to worse explain to the uni that for some reason you cannot provide evidence. It happens to multiple people and they may understand.

I said that I volunteer there, and that I know about the needs of adults and different age groups, following what I've said about different work experience with a variety of ages.
I'm trying to arrange to start at the nursing home in question, as well as phoning other nursing homes to see if I could start at one of them.
I think I might have to contact the university as soon as I get hold of the nursing home though, I'm just worried that this might permanently affect my chances of getting into medical school at all... Have you heard of this happening to someone before?

Ah that isn't so bad then as you didn't go too specific. Do you have any other experience with working with people of different age groups that you could talk about? It shouldn't jeapordise your chances so I wouldn't worry too greatly
Yeah my friend who volunteering at a school for disabled children who went out of contact ended up having to get the evidence written up by our school instead - not exactly the same situation I guess

I have some experience from a district hospital where I spoke to and comforted an elderly patient on a ward, and experience as a first aider where I encountered people of all ages, but it's just the problem with them cross checking the information on the form with information on my personal statement...
Hmm, I guess it somewhat similar in terms of not having supportive evidence, but the problem is that I have yet to undertake any kind of work experience at a nursing home. If I manage to gain work experience over the next few weeks preceding my interview would that be enough to cover the issue or would I have to tell the universities as well?

Have you spoken to your school about this?
Maybe bring all the evidence from your other experience and 'forget' that one?
Or bring a note to them of the reason that you could not access them.
Otherwise don't listen if this is bad advice

Was it your school who advised you to say you'd already started? If so you could maybe get them to verify this to show you didn't mislead them on purpose.

No, not yet, I'll need to do that tomorrow. I have considered that, I'm just worried that they might compare the form against my personal statement. You mean write a note to the medical school saying I couldn't start because of the issues with the manager being ill?

Yep better to be honest about it, maybe get your school to write it for you. They should understand