Bright futures as Reid launch new NHS careers microsite

NHS Careers announces an exciting new microsite, Bright Futures. Bright Futures targets young people including school leavers and graduates. The site features a variety of stories from people currently working in the NHS that will inspire visitors to the site to consider joining the team in any one of over 300 different jobs and careers.

The new microsite comes on the back of the NHS being named last week as one of the top employers in the country. The Times Top 100 Graduate Careers Survey listed the NHS in fifth place up from ninth last year and 27th in 2002!

Health Secretary John Reid said:
There’s never been a better time to work in the NHS. The NHS can offer great careers for young people, with jobs that fit around people’s lives and provide fantastic development potential and opportunity.

The new website will provide extremely useful information to a group of people who are vital to the NHS - young people, who will form the backbone of the NHS workforce in the years to come.

’Bright Futures’ (www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/brightfutures) goes live today (23 September).

In a few years time, any of the young visitors to the new site could be working at the cutting edge of healthcare science or helping people cope with injuries, disabilities or emotional problems through their work as one of the many different kinds of therapists. Nursing also offers a hugely varied and rewarding career whether nursing adults or children, or those with mental health and learning disabilities.

But crucially, there are less well known roles for technicians, managers, IT and health informatics specialists, even electricians and plumbers, and the new site illustrates such careers through a variety of stories from young NHS staff.

There’s not much one can do outside the NHS that one couldn’t do inside it, and whatever the young workforce of the future choose, they’ll be part of the thousands of teams of people helping others to get back on their feet.

One of the stories on the new microsite features Dan English, aged 17, who is an Apprentice Joiner at Mid-Staffordshire General Hospital.

He explains, I’m currently one year into a three year Joinery Course at my
local college. A while ago I was told about a possible position that was
open for an Apprentice Joiner at the Mid-Staffordshire General. I
contacted them and was offered the job. I hadn’t thought about working in a hospital before, but obviously, the NHS will always need specialist craftsmen to keep the infrastructure working efficiently.

The course I’m on at college is mostly practical, teaching the key skills I’ll need in the future, but it’s good to be able to get experience of being in a proper working environment as well. I’m really enjoying working at the hospital, everyone is really friendly, helpful and supportive and I’m learning more all the time.

I work all over the hospital, constructing shelving, fixing locks and doors and so on. There’s always plenty to do and it’s a very nice environment work in, whether in the work shop or around the hospital wards. I’d definitely like to stay on after I’ve qualified, and am looking forward to a great future in my chosen career.

A second case study is from Alison Crawford, a Medical Laboratory Assistant at Northampton General Hospital. Alison was 16 when she successfully applied for a job that was advertised in the local paper for a medical laboratory assistant in the Pathology Department at Northampton General Hospital.

She says, I was interested in science and its application to medicine.

I’d started to do A levels in the sixth form but was not happy with having to do subjects I wasn’t interested in.

After six months working in the laboratory, my manager asked me if I would like to further my education. I liked my job, which entailed providing support to the biomedical scientists but realised that I would like to learn more about the science behind what I was doing, to learn new skills and become a biomedical scientist myself.

I enrolled in the National Extension College on a distance learning course to do A level Biology and Chemistry. The department provided funding and some time out of the laboratory was allowed for practical work in local schools. I hope that when I have obtained my A levels, I will be provided with funding to enrol on a part time BSc Biomedical Science course which will enable me to become a biomedical scientist while continuing to work in the laboratory.

I like working in the varied field of biomedical science and am pleased with the development opportunities provided by the NHS as well as all the help and support provided by my colleagues.

For further information on ’Bright Futures’, or interviews with any of the case studies featured on the site, please contact: Beverley Bailey on 0208 870 4301 or email bev.bailey@uk.com