May 22, 2025, by Jackie Thompson
Gaining experience within the NHS
By Gemma Foxall, Careers Adviser
Image from Pixabay
In this article, you’ll discover why gaining experience in the NHS will enhance your future career ambitions, how to find opportunities and support available when you are ready to apply for roles.
Why?
If your ultimate career goal is to work as a psychologist, a physiotherapist, a doctor, a nurse, a speech and language therapist, a clinical scientist, NHS Graduate Management Trainee (to name a few) then gaining experience of working in the NHS, alongside your academic studies, could be hugely beneficial to your future applications.
Working as a healthcare assistant or support worker could give you experience of:
- working in a caring environment
- contributing to a multi-disciplinary team
- supporting various, or specific, patient groups.
- working within the NHS
- demonstrating the NHS values in a role
Have a look at a job description for the healthcare or NHS-based role you might ultimately be interested in, I expect you will find more than one of these criteria listed.
You would also gain transferable skills such as effective communication, problem-solving and empathy which could be beneficial for a huge number of roles both within and outside of healthcare.
How?
Sounds like gaining this experience could be beneficial, so how do you get it?
NHS Jobs – all roles in the NHS, and some in private healthcare, care homes and charities, are advertised through NHS Jobs. You can search for job titles, or key terms, and filter the results to show opportunities local to you. Entry level search terms you might consider trying are healthcare assistant or support worker.
Volunteering – another option could be to explore volunteering opportunities within your local NHS trust. For Nottingham University Hospitals, you might find opportunities such as ‘meet and greet volunteers’ or ‘meal-time assistants’. Through these volunteering experiences, you would develop skills, such as communication, and building experience of the NHS and patient interaction.
Work experience –it is possible to arrange work experience within the NHS, this could be up to one day or perhaps five or 10 days over the course of a few months. Gaining experience in different areas of the NHS is important for those wanting to apply to Graduate Entry to Medicine, but these experiences could provide a hugely valuable insight for a variety of other professions working within, or related to healthcare.
To arrange work experience in the Nottingham area, visit NUH Work Experience Hub. If you are hoping to find experience elsewhere in the UK, search the local NHS Trust’s website and it should bring up a similar work experience page.
Bank roles
Depending on your previous experience you might find opportunities to work in the NHS as temporary ‘bank’ staff via NHS Professionals. For example, a student nurse with at least 12 weeks of hands-on clinical experience could work as a healthcare assistant via the bank. There are also non-clinical roles that you could apply to through NHS Professionals, including administrative roles, IT and finance, catering, porters and cleaners.
Applying for roles
For support with finding or applying for opportunities you can book an appointment to discuss with an adviser via MyCareer. Advice on creating a CV, completing an application and preparing for interviews, visit our Making applications webpages.
Other useful resources
– NHS Health Careers – explore the various roles in the NHS, plus you could take their ‘Find your health career’ quiz.
– NHS values – for any role you are interested in applying to in the NHS, you will need to understand, and be able to demonstrate the NHS values.
– Free online courses could give you a useful history or overview of the NHS, such as ‘The NHS explained’ on FutureLearn.
– Find NHS workplace simulation activities via ShortlistMe – an interview preparation package available to University of Nottingham students.
If you need help finding and applying for opportunities or you’re not sure what options would be best for you, talk to a member of our team.
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