HEALTH MATTERS
Julia Curtis, head of clinical quality at NHS Eastern Cheshire CCG HERE at the CCG, we understand the importance of interesting young people in a career with the NHS.
This is vital if we are to have a sustainable workforce which doesn’t have too many employees approaching retirement.
And that’s why we’ve been hosting undergraduates on 12-month work placements for the last three years. This year’s students are Robbie Nolan and Alex Skelly, both of whom are studying for Bachelor of Arts degrees at Sheffield Hallam University. Robbie is reading business and marketing, while Alex is studying business and economics.
Both students have done some great work during their time with us.
For example, they have been involved in setting up a Care Homes Quality Improvement Collaborative, which brings together the area’s care home managers to agree small-scale changes to improve residents’ lives. Issues on which action have been agreed include:
• Planning for end of life.
• Preventing pressure ulcers.
• Effective management of dementia.
What’s more, Robbie, from Tarporley, has provided administrative support to the communications and engagement workstream of the Caring Together transformation programme while helping design the monthly Caring Together newsletter. He has distributed flyers to groups targeted by our Choose Well campaign, the purpose of which is to promote self-care and give people the information they need to choose the right service at the right time when they fall ill. Alex, from Macclesfield, has produced a newsletter for the area’s care homes and gathered performance information from health service providers to enable the CCG decide if they should get incentive payments for excellent service. He has also organised regular training for the area’s practice nurses. Reflecting on their year with us, Robbie and Alex both named the setting up of the care home collaborative as their biggest achievement.
Robbie said the ability to prioritise was an important skill he had developed with the CCG while Alex said it had been ‘incredibly enlightening’ to work in a professional environment as part of the nation’s largest employer. Before his placement at the CCG, he had not fully appreciated the wide range of careers the NHS offered outside clinical roles. Both students said they were now interested in pursuing careers in the NHS. The two undergraduates will return to university in September – by which time they will have been fully involved in recruiting their successors.