Newsroom
Focusing on the importance of apprenticeships
The 15th annual event celebrating apprenticeships takes place this week (7-13 February), and for our Trust, the chance to highlight the importance of apprenticeships for the NHS.
An apprenticeship is a paid job which offers hands-on work experience alongside training away from work. The Trust has apprentices working in clinical and non-clinical roles in, amongst others, nursing, therapy, business support, pharmacy, human resources and the library.
Senior endoscopy assistant Francineide Hubbard is looking to a future that she hopes will see her qualify as a registered nurse in a year’s time through the apprenticeship programme. Fran has finished the first year of her adult nursing apprenticeship, combining study at the University of Suffolk with her role as part of the our endoscopy team.
She came to our Trust from her native Brazil, with very little English, to work as a housekeeper, initially on the Bank, but then as a permanent member of staff. Cleaning a bay one day in 2007, she was asked for help by a patient who said they were in pain, and made Fran feel she wanted to do more for the patients.
She worked as a nursing assistant from 2010 to 2015, and during that time successfully completed both her intermediate apprenticeship level 2 and advanced apprenticeship level 3. Moving to endoscopy, Fran then completed a foundation degree. After a break from all the studying, she embarked on the two-year course in February 2021 – a top-up as she has the other qualifications needed.
Fran acknowledged that keeping up with the academic work while working, and looking after her sons, aged 13 and 10, was very hard. “I am a committed person,” she said, “and I focus on what I want to do. I have passed all my exams and assignment so far on my first year and will start on my second and last year this month – I want to do my best. Every free evening I have is taken up with studying and revising, but it is worth it. I do have a real sense of achievement.” She also has a daughter of 25, and said the whole family was proud of her.
Fran said anyone who had ambitions to become a nurse should follow her example, and not be put off by the challenges. “I think what I have achieved is an incentive for people and I would advise anyone to do this, if they love looking after people. It’s hard, and it’s a long journey, but it’s worth it.”
Quality improvement manager Natasha Rivers said: “I met Fran on one of our training courses and found her story really inspiring. It shows her resilience and determination but also will hopefully inspire other people to look at a role in nursing.”
Gracie Cull, administration assistant with the integrated clinical education team, joined our Trust in November 2020. She started a business administration level 3 apprenticeship a month later with West Suffolk College. Gracie said: “I was attracted to the post as I wanted to work in the NHS and also gain a qualification to start my career in administration.
“The team supports students, overseas nurses and staff in newly qualified roles, and I support the team with administrative duties. The team has been really supportive of my apprenticeship as it was a case of ‘practise what you preach’ in terms of building a highly skilled workforce.
“I have nearly finished my apprenticeship and hope to have gained the business administration qualification by summer 2022. I would eventually like to climb the ladder but I want to gain more experience working in the NHS first.”
Find out more about Apprenticeship Week here: https://www.apprenticeships.gov.uk/influencers/naw-2022
For information about opportunities at our Trust visit:
https://www.wsh.nhs.uk/Join-our-team/Job-opportunities.aspx
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