Anthea Hockly, Associate Director of Workforce Development and Learning at Essex Partnership University NHS FT (EPUT), joins us to talk about the new Health and Care Academy which has been founded in Essex through the work of the trust and a number of other partners from across the region's health and social care delivery spectrum.
Giving young people in the area an opportunity to directly engage with NHS and care professionals from a very diverse range of roles, including both clinical and non-clinical positions, the sessions were a great way to help the young people answer the questions they wanted to know and directly engage with people they perhaps otherwise would not have had the opportunity to do so with and discover job roles they may not have ever considered.
Having originally been planned as a face-to-face event, the coronavirus pandemic caused EPUT and the other partners to have to flex and shift quickly to a digital offering instead - something which has since become a preferred outcome after it worked well, resonated with the young people who remained highly engaged and opened more doors to provide a wider, more interesting cohort of professionals.
Training the next generation, across a range of different methods, and upskilling the existing workforce are essential to the continued success of the NHS and schemes like these are a vital way of ensuring the health service doesn't miss out on any potential future talent; even if they fall outside of the traditional, university/academic-focused route into the service.
- Steve Gulati, University of Birmingham
