Work experience placements

NHS Highland will ensure that your work experience placement is a positive and effective experience. We achieve this through:

• health and safety checks and risk assessment, to safeguard you from any potential risks or dangers
• provision of appropriate support and guidance before and during your time with us
• provision of insurance cover

The application process has several stages to ensure we can meet our commitment. All work experience requests go through our Employability Team via the Work Experience Coordinator.

Please be aware that we may not always be able to support a request, due to a range of different reasons. Certain areas also have restrictions on who can undertake work experience.

Work experience enables an individual to undertake shadowing and observation to support them to understand a role better.

In addition, during your placement time you will have the opportunity to experience essential work-based skills such as time keeping, team working, problem solving and working collaboratively.

Work experience is not a long-term experience within the organisation. A work experience placement is usually between 1 and 5 days.

Work experience is not a paid placement.

Work experience is not the placements undertaken as part of a programme of study, which have outlined learning outcomes that must be achieved during the placement (e.g. FA, HNC, HND and degree). These placements may be for a longer period of time and require a tripartite agreement between the learning provider, the student and the placement department.

Work experience should not be seen as volunteering.

No hands-on clinical experience is permitted within health and social care environments, thereby ensuring the safety of both you and our patients.

You will just focus upon one area or job role during your placement and so may have limited exposure to the range of other career pathways or opportunities that may be open to you.

Individuals requiring additional support may be asked for additional information to ensure an appropriate risk assessment is put in place. NHS Highland will carry out a risk assessment and any reasonable adjustments will be made for applicants with additional or special needs. NHS Highland strives to be an all-inclusive organisation.

We aim to provide young people aged 15+ and currently in education with the opportunity to gain work experience to support access to future health and social care study and careers. The hours of work experience will vary between the hours individual departments can offer, although will typically be structured around normal school hours.

College students must be aged 16+ and studying within a full-time college course to apply, and will gain up to 1 week’s experience depending on the discretion of the department.

Work experience placements as part of an educational programme with clear learning outcomes to be achieved during the placement (e.g. FA, HNC, HND and degree) are negotiated via a tripartite agreement between learning provider, the placement manager and student. They follow a different pathway.

Adults who are not in full-time education and who are thinking about a career change are welcome to apply for work experience.

Work experience applications (except for medical work experience) is available all year round for those aged 15+. However, please be aware that certain services and areas may be busier than normal at certain times of year, or due to circumstances beyond our control. If we are unable to support your request we may suggest an alternative time for you to apply, or we may have to decline your request.

We have the Doctors at Work programme at NHS Highland for pupils or undergraduates who would like to apply for a medical degree.

Work placement experience provides you with the opportunity to shadow an individual in the workplace and find out a little more about their role, their day-to-day tasks and to ask questions to help you support your career decisions. Usually, you will experience only one role or career pathway during the placement.

If you would like to find out more about a range of different roles or to broaden your knowledge of the range of roles and pathways into a career you should consider the career inspiration weeks. These will enable you to discover different types of roles, professions and routes into a career in health and social care.

NHS Highland aim to ensure that we meet the needs of people with a disability or additional needs. Please include any accessibility or additional needs information within your application for work experience.