Barts Health NHS Trust - Health Care Horizons
August 2019
Background
Healthcare Horizons programme is helping young people in East London to take the first steps in NHS careers by enabling them to learn more about different health professions, access higher education and secure employment within the NHS. It has been developed with the intention of delivering short and medium-term improvements in recruiting and retaining suitably qualified staff with focus on local recruitment. Through our work we aim to increase awareness of NHS careers, raise career aspirations among young people within our communities, promote Barts Health as a local employer, and to improve careers advice and guidance provided to young people.
The programme works directly with 37 secondary schools within Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Hackney and Newham offering wide range of activities; career events, online mentoring, virtual work experience platform, face to face work experience, parent engagement sessions and pre-employment training programme including clinical and non-clinical pathways.
It is supported by Sadiq Kahn who wants to give young Londoners access to a wealth of career opportunities that exist in London's healthcare sector.
Aim of the Program
Healthcare Horizons aims to provide participating mentees with support in the following areas:
- Career advice and guidance
- University applications and interview guidance
- Developing communication skills and confidence building
- Increasing knowledge about the NHS and available careers and career pathways within the sector
Our Solution
As the PLD mentoring solution is highly configurable we were able to work with the Healthcare Horizons team on a mentoring user journey that met the needs of their mentees and mentors.
As the mentors are busy healthcare professionals the mentoring platform had to be accessible and easy to use as well as appealing to the mentees who are 6th form college students.
PLD worked with the team at Healthcare Horizons to tailor a user journey to meet the needs of their mentors and mentees and deliver a programme that is providing essential career support to aspiring healthcare students.
Results
75% of mentees who have registered have found a suitable match to provide career advice and support in their chosen area of healthcare interest.
They mentees have matched with mentors to support career advice and guidance, UCAS application support, university interview support, personal statement advice and general advice about working in the healthcare sector.
Feedback from the platform survey shows that the programme has been effective in helping young people from diverse backgrounds to unlock their potential and help guide them to a career in healthcare.
Client Feedback
"The platform has helped us mentor young people from local schools who are considering a career within the health sector. It links young people to professionals from different backgrounds and help them make more informed choices about their future career. The feedback from both students and mentors have been great so far."
"I really like the fact that we were able to develop a bespoke platform that meets the project needs. Very easy development and implementation stage with lots of support from the development team from start to finish. Great customer service; always willing to cater for individual needs, professional and speedy response rate. The platform is very user friendly and the reporting functionality is also helpful. Great product."
Mentor Feedback
"Gave me a sense of giving back"
"It has helped to promote my profession and the healthcare sector. Has helped attract new talent to the profession."
99% mentors said they would recommend mentoring to colleagues
Mentee Feedback
"My mentor has provide me feedback on how to improve."
"My mentor has encourage me to take up a career in the health service."
