Pupils from Park School with navigators from the Trust
Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has vouched to support younger people with their careers into the NHS.
The Trust was recently involved in ‘Takeover Challenge’ which is an annual initiative to provide youngsters the opportunity to gain work experience in a variety of areas within the different services and teams in the NHS.
Rebecca Booth, Children’s Services Engagement Lead for the Trust, organised the week and arranged for teams to benefit from a fresh perspective on their work and involve young people in projects they are working on.
There were many activities taking place over the week involving 12 teams and more than 20 young people.
Rebecca said: “Young people gain a valuable insight on the day-to-day running of the Trust, and gain real work experience during their time spent with us.
“Takeover Challenge is my favourite time of year. Both young people and services at the Trust are always so keen to work together in partnership and I think that everyone benefits from taking part in this type of engagement work.
“It is a great opportunity for us as professionals to see how our service can be perceived through the eyes of a young person, and consider how the work that we do can impact our patients.
“By meeting and working with young people, we can work collaboratively to look at different ways to improve the way we deliver care for our patients.
“A huge thank you to everyone involved for once again making this event a success.”
Paul Canning, Medical Photographer, who hosted a young person for the day, said: “I found the young people’s perspective and intelligent questioning refreshing.
The experience made me feel valued and I thoroughly enjoyed telling them all about our role within the Trust”.
Max Sagar, one of the students who spent the day with Sterile Services, said: “I’ve learnt that there is a lot happening behind the scenes when a patient has surgery.
“I enjoyed learning about a different part of the NHS. There are many systems in place that help to safeguard patients and the team play a big part in patient care”.
Another student, Isabelle Fletcher, spent the day with Cancer Services.
She said: “I’ve learnt that there are so many helping hands and support for people who have, or have had cancer.
“Something I would like to do in the future is help improve awareness of different cancers in schools”.