Welcome to National Apprenticeship Week - Employer Tuesday, where employers can learn about some of the benefits and challenges to supporting apprenticeships within their organisation.
If you are a health or care provider and thinking about supporting apprenticeships in your organisation, please get in touch with the Academy team using the contact form at the bottom of the page to find out more on how to do this and link in with local education partners.
The benefits of supporting student placements such as apprenticeships
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- It will provide you the chance to showcase what job opportunities are available in your organisation, and what makes your organisation the best place to work.
- It can also support future recruitment. You will be providing your apprentice with the skills, knowledge and behaviours they need to have a successful career with you.
- Students can act as an extra resource. For example, nursing students and nursing associates can support with undertaking designated tasks which can relieve operational pressure.
- Students can give you a different perspective on your ways of working and serve as a fresh pair of eyes.
- By supporting apprentices, you will raise your profile of expertise in the network.
- You will support your CQC well led domain and show you work well in partnership and that you are transparent.
- Apprentices can enhance care for the people you support.
- You will be able to manage new talent and identify future workforce.
- Students are employer ready through their development of practical skills and ‘on the job’ experience.
- Provides them the opportunity to explore real health and care environments, which will support them to identify their strengths, their preferences, and help them to understand what career they wish to choose and where they want to work. This could be with you!
- Supports them with their academic achievements. It will bring their learning into a real work environment and help them to learn and retain knowledge.
- Supports them with personal development and builds confidence and capability.
- Supports them to develop the special set of skills, knowledge, values and behaviours that are needed to work in health and care.
- Can support with developing social skills
- Enables practical skills development with hands-on experience
- Provides networking opportunities – not only with other students, but the ability to learn from staff who have a wealth of skills and experience.
- Provides the opportunity for knowledge sharing and skills exchange. Staff will enjoy passing their skills, knowledge and experience on to students.
- Staff can learn from their students! Fresh eyes and newly-learned theory can provide an interesting perspective for experienced staff members.
- Creates opportunities to develop skills in leadership, coaching, mentoring and assessing.
- Promotes a culture of learning and development.
- Enables the team to understand different roles.
- Creates the opportunity to work with the education providers to contribute to the developing curriculums and provide relevant, up to date information and skills required to be a healthcare professional.
Hear from an employer - Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust
Supporting apprenticeships in our organisation enables us to grow our own workforce and provides the opportunity to offer development opportunities to our current staff.
We are able to invest in our staff through career development, which not only helps them to develop, but supports our retention rates.
The main challenge is backfill and being unable to use the levy to support this. This impacts on each ward's budget, and therefore limits the number of learners we can support at any one time.
Apprenticeships are a part of Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust's workforce planning and development. We have adopted an "apprenticeship first" strategy, where all Business and Administration vacancies that are advertised at Bands 2-4 will be hired as apprenticeship posts. This enables us to draw from a talent pipeline within our local communities.
- Maria Kelly, Learning and Apprenticeship Manager
Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust
Hear from an employer - Whitstable Medical Practice
Apprenticeships are an exciting opportunity for both apprentice and employer and we have run some very successful programmes at Whitstable Medical Practice.
Every year we employ Medical Secretarial apprentices as well as Admin apprentices, and this year for the first time we introduced Financial Apprenticeship.
I personally really enjoy going through the applications and meeting the young people for the first time during their interview, and then follow them through their journey: learning, developing, gaining new skills. It is even more exciting when they settle in to a successful role within the Practice after their complete their apprenticeship.
It comes with its own challenges – additional time and support is needed can be a little daunting at times. Some programmes require a lot of involvement from the line manager (meetings, writing observation, etc.), others are more focused on apprentices self-study. We found that by having multiple apprentices in various stages in their learning really helps for peer support and development.
We are always on the lookout for new apprenticeship opportunities.
We also encourage our clinical staff to train, develop and progress and have very successfully supported staff through the Nursing Associate, Adult Nursing, Enhanced Clinical Practitioner and ACP apprenticeships.
Having the ability to offer this to our staff has been absolutely amazing, it helped with recruitment and retention of staff as well developing our own talent and encouraging staff to progress to new roles within the Practice, which in turn allows staff to earn more.
While the apprenticeship route is a very affordable way to support staff to gain additional qualifications, it does require staff to be released for their study time, which means additional staffing costs to backfill their time, which can be costly at the time, but it’s worth it in the long run!
- Ash Grace, General Manager
Whitstable Medical Practice
