This experience serves as a crucial stepping stone on your career journey, paving the way for numerous opportunities, including university degrees, apprenticeships, and access to various NHS and Social Care roles.
Are you looking to start your career within the NHS or Social Care?
Gaining experience is a crucial stepping stone in the career planning process and can ensure that you are on the right path towards a fantastic career in an area you are passionate about.
While some positions require formal qualifications, others require you to be able to demonstrate your commitment and understanding. Being able to showcase your genuine interest in a particular role and having a good understanding of what a that career involves, can significantly enhance an employment application.
How can you build your experience?
There are lots of ways that you can build your healthcare experience so that you are sure that a career in the NHS or Social Care is for you.
Some of the methods you can use to learn more include:
Work Experience Placement – Work experience placements can be arranged in a variety of different healthcare settings and even a short placement will give you a fantastic insight into careers in the NHS and Social Care and the environment that our professionals work in. Have a look at the available opportunities on our Mid and South Essex Work Experience Hub and see if there is an offer that suits your interest.
Virtual Work Experience Placement – Virtual work experience is completed online through a specialist platform rather than in person and gives the opportunity to learn about healthcare careers from home. Our Health & Care Academy offer virtual work experience through Springpod, but there are other opportunities to explore healthcare with Speakers for Schools, Pathways CTM and other providers too.
Careers Quiz – If you are just starting out on your career journey or are looking to change careers but are not sure which role you might be well suited to, have a look at our Careers Quiz pages which will help you narrow down your options based on your personal interests. This is a great way to begin to research careers that you might be well suited to and to see where you could use your skills and experience to support patients or service users.
Insight Events – Lots of our Mid and South Essex NHS and Social Care providers get involved in our Health & Care Academy activities and offer Insight Events to those who are interested in finding out more about particular careers. Insight Events are half day, in-person experiences which give attendees the opportunity to come into the healthcare environment and work with professionals from the team to learn about roles and entry routes to these careers. Previous Insight Events include Nursing, Radiotherapy, Surgery and Robotics as well as Midwifery. Have a look at our events calendar for upcoming Insight Events that you can book onto.
Careers Expo and STEAM Creative Technologies Roadshow Events – The Health & Care Academy run an annual Careers Expo and an annual STEAM Creative Technologies Roadshow which many of our Integrated Care System Providers attend. These events bring our professionals together to showcase their career area and talk to people who are exploring their options and are interested in finding out more about careers in the NHS and Social Care. There are practical demonstrations, hands-on interactive activities, Meet the Professionals talks and a careers stand area. All of the schools and colleges in Mid and South Essex are invited to this event and in 2024, we had over 750 young people attend.
Volunteering – Volunteering allows you to make a weekly, long term commitment to working with one of our healthcare providers. You will get to experience the healthcare environment and undertake tasks alongside regular staff. Although you won’t get paid for this role, you will gain a rewarding experience that fits around your other commitments. To find volunteering opportunities, look at our partner providers websites to find out more. The Health & Care Academy run a Young Person’s Volunteering Scheme for those students who are part of the College Enrichment Programme and further details can be found on our Health & Care Academy page.
Supported Internships – Supported Internship Placements offer a mixture of healthcare work placement experience and study days at college. These opportunities are usually for young people aged between 16 and 24 years old with an Education Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and many of our further education colleges in Mid and South Essex offer Supported Internship Programmes. For more information, check out our local college providers pages.
College Enrichment Programme – Our Health & Care Academy work closely with students studying T Levels and BTEC programmes at our Mid and South Essex further education college sites to offer our College Enrichment Programme. The College Enrichment Programme is a regular schedule of interventions that support those studying Health & Social Care programmes to access extended learning and opportunities in healthcare that they might not have access to otherwise. For further information about the College Enrichment Programme, see our Health & Care Academy information page.
Paid Summer Internship Placement – The Health & Care Academy offer a number of 4 week, Paid Summer Internship Placements in a variety of different health and care settings for those aged over 17 years. In 2024, these placements were offered to care experienced young people living in our Mid and South Essex region. If you would be interested in accessing a Paid Summer Internship Placement in 2025, have a look at our events calendar to find out when applications open.
Healthcare Careers in Focus – For the 2024/25 academic year, the East of England Health & Care Academies are teaming up to deliver a series of virtual learning sessions for students who are studying healthcare related courses. The programme will be delivered live covering the below topics:
- Explore healthcare roles,
- Provide masterclasses in skills required for a career in the sector,
- Provide information about routes and pathways into both NHS and Social Care careers,
- Explore East of England university provision relating to healthcare careers
- Provide information about apprenticeship development opportunities in the region.
The sessions will be led by our industry healthcare professionals on a weekly basis during term time and will be available live on Wednesday afternoons between 3.30pm and 4.30pm. These sessions are available for students attending further education college or sixth forms in the East of England Region. Recordings of our weekly sessions will be uploaded and available on our Healthcare Careers in Focus YouTube channel the following day for those unable to watch live. For more information, see our Health & Care Academy page.
Speak to a Careers Advisor – If you are unsure of how and where to use your skills, you can speak to a Careers Advisor who can help you identify careers based on your strengths, interests, skills and qualifications. Many schools and colleges have dedicated in house careers advice services but if you are considering a career change, careers advice services in Mid and South Essex are now all age and are available to all residents.
You can find out more about available opportunities to speak to a Careers Advisor here:
Relevant Experience
It is a good idea to try to gain experience in an area of healthcare that interests you however, any experience you can gain in a related healthcare environment either in-person or virtually will give you a good insight into the work available. You could support patients or service users directly, support in administrative areas or in other roles behind the scenes.
There are many Mid and South Essex healthcare organisations who offer opportunities to build your experience. You could consider gaining an insight with any of the following providers.
- An acute setting, either an NHS or private hospital.
- NHS clinics or health centres.
- A charity or social enterprise such as one that supports people with long term health conditions, disabilities or works with young people.
- First Aid providers such as St Johns Ambulance or the Red Cross.
- Residential Care Homes.
- Nursing Homes.
- Day Care Services.
- NHS Cadets.
- The Prince’s Trust.
What are the benefits of building experience?
Wherever you gain experience of a healthcare environment and future careers, there are many personal benefits that you will gain too. Experience will:
- Allow you to network with professionals and find out information directly from them about their role and further opportunities.
- Develop your transferrable skills which are essential to all jobs that you undertake. Skills such as teamwork, communication, problem solving, initiative etc will all be useful to you in a future career.
- Improve your confidence and knowledge about the world of work and help you decide if a career is for you.
- Develop important knowledge around empathy and what it takes to care for others, details which are crucial to a career in the NHS or Social Care.
- Give you a fantastic addition to your CV and job applications as well as providing you with experiences to talk about at an interview that demonstrate your commitment and enthusiasm for the role.
How can I make the most of my experience?
With any experience you are offered in healthcare, be sure to:
- Ask questions about tasks you are given to make sure you understand why these are important for the healthcare setting.
- Be on time for your opportunity and if you are unavoidably delayed, phone your supervisor to let them know.
- Ensure you follow the guidelines for appropriate clothing and footwear for the setting.
- Be aware of your personal hygiene.
- Follow the health and safety guidelines you are provided with for the workplace.
- Ask colleagues if they need help with other tasks if you see opportunities for this.
- Make notes about the tasks you take part in so that you can see skills you have developed.
- Keep a reflective journal of your experiences so that you can think about how tasks could be approached differently depending on the situations you encounter.
How can I use my experiences in the future?
Experiences in healthcare not only look fantastic on your CV, they will also support applications for university study, healthcare related courses and jobs. Make the most of the experience you have gained by:
- Explaining the role you undertook and the tasks that you participated in.
- Highlight the skills and knowledge you gained from the experience.
- Discuss how the experience helped you develop your knowledge about a chosen career and helped you commit to this pathway.
What to do if you cannot secure suitable experience
If you are having difficulty securing experience in a relevant area of healthcare due to age restrictions, health and safety restrictions, patient privacy or reduced availability, there are other options for you consider that will provide you with useful knowledge and transferable skills in the meantime.
- Get involved in our Health & Care Academy activities. There are lots of learning opportunities around the many careers in the NHS and Social Care where you can meet our Academy Ambassadors and talk about their careers. It might be helpful if you are joining one of our Academy events to consider the questions you would like to ask our professions in advance to find out more about how they began their career and what qualifications they studied.
- Have a look for alternative experiences outside of healthcare. Think about the career you want and consider the different skills needed for this. For example, if you want to work with people, you could gain useful customer service experience in another industry and then bring the transferrable skills you learn to your application, course or job in healthcare in the future.