Go Higher in Healthcare - opportunities for work experience placements for students from disadvantaged backgrounds

Access to career opportunities is limited for some young people in the Wakefield District. There is national programme to increase the number the number of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in higher education by 2020. The programme is called NCOP – National Collaborative Outreach Programme and in West Yorkshire the programme is a collaboration of Higher Education Institutes in Leeds, Bradford and Huddersfield.

Schools in Wakefield District have been targeted by Go Higher, West Yorkshire and one of their programmes is called Go Higher in Healthcare. This initiative hopes to increase the numbers of students progressing into healthcare sectors that reflect the wider community, correcting under-representations related to social background, gender, ethnicity, age and disability.

This initiative is an expansion of a programme started by the University of Leeds in 2014, funded by Health Education England and the Royal College of General Practitioners (Widening Participation in Medicine).  It involved placements in Primary Care with supportive workshops for applicants before and after their placements.  The current project involves working with a broader mix of healthcare-related organisations in order to deliver careers activities and events in schools and to support placement in a wide variety of settings.

Careers events will be flexibly hosted at NCOP partner schools, with the possibility for some learners to engage in work experience placements of three days duration. Students will have to apply for the work experience placements, will have workshops before and after their placements and given a reflective notebook to record what they did.

The programme is looking for practices to offer three day work experience programmes. These are immersive and meant to allow students to shadow members of the GP team. In the placements students typically shadow the following members of staff: 
  • Reception and admin team
  • Practice nursing team
  • GPs and especially trainee doctors
  • Other GP team members ie pharmacists, physios

The programme offers a small payment to practices (£150 per placement) and the experience of practices who offered similar placements for students as part of the Widening Participation in Medicine was that it was worthwhile, not excessively arduous and very helpful for students.


The Academy has offered to provide 30 placements during the period June to September. We already have an offer from one practice of a placement every two weeks during this period. If you want to get involved then let me know by clicking here, ASAP as once the scheme is full, it is full!

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