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Health and care academies
We’re opening the eyes of young people to the variety of jobs the NHS has to offer.
Our Health and Care Academies give young people the opportunity to see some of the things that healthcare professionals do, to learn some essential life skills, work as a team, solve problems and find out more about what they are interested in.
“The academy gave me the confidence to realise I was good enough to be doing the role I wanted to do.”
“It would be difficult for individuals attending an academy not to find a role that suits them.”
Places on the academies are limited, so potential students need to go through a recruitment process before they can attend.
Once at the academy, they attend one afternoon per week for six months where they:
- Get to know the variety of roles in the NHS
- Speak directly to nurses, paramedics, dieticians, speech therapists…the list is almost endless
- Learn basic skills used in healthcare, including patient care, dementia care, basic life support and CPR
- Learn life skills, including CV writing, personal communication techniques, British Sign Language, resilience, wellbeing.
We are very keen to expand the model across England but currently the academies only operate across our East of England region, where we have taken a proven delivery model from the James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The academies are at different stages of development, but currently you'll find them offered in partnership with:
- Bedford Hospital NHS Trust
- Cambridgeshire and Peterborough ICS
- Hertfordshire and West Essex Health and Care Academy
- Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust
- Norfolk & Waveney Health and Care Academy
- Suffolk & North East Essex ICS.
A representative from the academy attends schools and colleges to talk to pupils about the opportunity of attending an academy. Young people will get all the information they need at this session.
If you or your child have not had the opportunity to attend an academy near them, please email us at healthacademy.eoe@hee.nhs.uk and we’ll see what we can do.