Work Experience
Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust welcomes, supports and encourages work experience.
Work experience introduces young people to the world of work and is a valuable and essential part of their education. For individuals in further education or in long-term unemployment or interested in a career change, work experience can further support learning and provide valuable experience of the working environment which can encourage a return to employment or give you that push to embark on a new career path.
The National Health Service has over 350 different careers, all working to contribute some part to patient care. Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust has a variety of occupations on offer. Work experience students will be given the opportunity to observe our fantastic staff, which will hopefully help them in deciding which career pathway they may wish to take.
Generalised list of tasks
This list is not comprehensive but will give you an idea of some of the tasks you can carry out:
- Talking to doctors/nurses about their job/career pathways
- Observing doctor/nurse led consultations with consent of patient
- Assist nursing staff with the co-ordination of clinics such as allocating case notes to clinics, arranging case notes in time order in preparation for the patient to be seen.
- Direct patients around the department
- Talk to patients and relatives
- Replenish patient leaflets in waiting areas
- Observe results being obtained from computer system, assist with nursing indicator questionnaires.
- Shadow staff members working in low dependency areas
- Attend the multi-disciplinary discharge meeting
- Shadow the doctor carrying out the baby checks
- Observe observations being taken
- Observe a drug round and speak to the pharmacist if possible
- Assist with menus, give out meals and drinks
- Assist with bed making
- Observe simple dressings with the patients consent
- Housekeeping duties
- Talk to other staff members and find out what the job involves, for example, ward clerk, physiotherapist
- Assist with filing
Theatres
Please note that, though our theatre department welcomes work experience students over the age of 18, due to the nature of the department, it is not possible to have students observe during surgery. When on work experience in other areas, it may be possible for you to visit the forward waiting area and to observe where patients are checked in. However, due to the limited access to the department, a single morning or afternoon is the normal duration for observation, so a half day placement is enough.
For further information on current opportunities available and the knowledge, skills, training and experience required to work in these different careers, including any support that may be available to help you train, please visit the NHS Careers website.
Categories of work experience students
- 16-18 year olds seeking relevant work experience to meet their university application requirements
- Ad-hoc requests from the over 16’s seeking NHS experience
Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust will, where possible, support the placements of all categories of students, Monday – Friday between 9am and 4pm. However, it is recognised that due to the nature of our business, work experience placements will be restricted to certain areas and specialities and the Trust will not be able to accommodate every request.
Work Experience students must be aged 16 or over to be placed in a clinical area. Please note that work experience students will be allocated to areas where they may get the chance to talk to different professionals, but they cannot be allocated to an individual professional.
An application form must be completed and submitted if requesting a work experience placement, as all email requests will be directed to the online application form.
Due to high demand of placements all requests are advised to be made 3 months in advance in order for us to meet your request.
Should you require any further information please contact work.experience@alderhey.nhs.uk
Work Experience Availability
At this moment, there is very limited availability. Once a set of dates are available, we will publish a link to our availability calendar for the year 2020.
Apply for work experience at Alder Hey
To apply for work experience here at Alder Hey, please check the availability calendar above and ensure you are applying for a date that is available. Once you have decided on a date, please click the below button to download the application form, fill it in and return to work.experience@alderhey.nhs.uk
