International Nurses Day - Michelle’s apprenticeship journey

To coincide with nursing week and international day of the nurse we’re highlighting the different routes into nursing roles and development opportunities. 

Colleagues at Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust have kindly produced the following interview. 

In 2020, Nursery Nurse Professional Lead at Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust (CCS) Michelle McKenzie embarked on a clinical apprenticeship. Here she chats candidly about the concerns she had about studying again in her fifties, what it’s like juggling her day job with being a BSc child nursing student and the myriad of career options available once she graduates as a registered children’s nurse.

“Over the last 12 years, I’ve worked in the community in health visiting and school nursing. I started working at CCS as a nursery nurse in 2009 and before that I worked in pre-schools, so it was a change coming into health.

When the nursery nurse professional lead role came up with the 0-19 Healthy Child Programme based in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, I was really excited as I’m passionate about the role of nursery nurses and was keen to have the opportunity to shape what we do and help ‘put us out there’ a little bit more. I’d been leading the nursery nurses for about six years when a service change meant I needed to look for a new challenge, and following several discussions with my line manager, I decided to look into a clinical apprenticeship. Coincidentally I was really interested in nursing when I left school but equally keen to be a chef and I chose to go down that route instead, so I thought this was a brilliant opportunity.

I started my Assistant Practitioner foundation degree as an apprentice in 2019 and Nursing degree in October 2021.

Nowadays I juggle my day job with university and hospital placements; I do three days a week in my normal job and two days either at Anglia Ruskin University or on placement. Due to the pandemic, my university course has all been online and I’ve loved the opportunity to put the theory into practice through face-to-face placements. I’ve just finished a four-month placement on the Covid and respiratory ward at Addenbrooke’s which was absolutely amazing, I learnt so much. I’m now on a slightly shorter placement called an insight placement for four weeks and that’s 15 hours a week on paediatric recovery at Addenbrooke’s hospital (part of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust).

Initially I found being an apprentice hard. I’d completed my previous course 10 years ago, so it was quite a shock going back to studying, but the support from Anglia Ruskin University and my team at CCS has been amazing. There have been times when my line manager has said, “Your diary is reasonably clear, why don’t you take the opportunity to study”. Everyone’s been so patient which I’m really pleased about, especially as I’m an older student. In fact, my age was probably my biggest fear and I thought ‘what am I doing at 51 starting to learn and study again’? And ‘will I be able to keep up because my memory cells aren’t as good as they used to be!’ Most of my peers are in their early twenties but there’s such a supportive culture, I don’t know why I worried.

Several people have asked if I wish I’d embarked on my nursing degree earlier, but my answer is always ‘no’. My daughter’s grown up now which means I can fully concentrate on studying without having any childcare worries and I think it’s worked in my favour having so much community experience. However, having said that, if you do have young children, I don’t think you should let that put you off because the support really is amazing, you just need to be self-motivated. One of my biggest concerns was going on placement and feeling like a burden but I’m pleased to say it isn’t like that at all. There’s a real family atmosphere at Addenbrooke’s and the clinical teams have a lot of time and respect for the students as they see us as the future of nursing.

In June 2023, I’m looking forward to qualifying with a BSc child nursing degree and the opportunities this will bring. I’ll be qualified as a staff nurse which means I could go and work within hospitals, whether that be ward work or something more specific. At the moment, I’m doing paediatric recovery so it could be something more specialist like that. Additionally, my degree will allow me to go back into health visiting and school nursing, which means I could then do my public health nursing degree and become a health visitor or a school nurse, so there’s the potential for another year’s training if I choose that option, which is all part of my apprenticeship. 

When you think about applying for a degree or some other sort of training, it’s common to worry about whether you have the time to commit to it, as well as the financial side, but with an apprenticeship it all just falls into place. You have the luxury of not having to pay the tuition fees and the bonus of having support from your own team too. 

I’m really grateful to CCS to have been given this wonderful opportunity and if anybody’s thinking of applying for an apprenticeship, I’d say absolutely go for it! My own team have been absolutely amazing as have my lecturers and peers, and the support I’ve received from Julie Nicholson and Jayne Jenkinson in the the CCS training and education team, and my mentor Nikki Clarke, has been absolutely brilliant. 

I think just getting that positive support and knowing you’re not on your own really does make the world of difference!"

For more information on apprenticeships at Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust, please contact ccs.growingourworkforce@nhs.net. 

To find out about nursing and other apprenticeship opportunities in the NHS visit the NHS Careers website.