Apprentice Nursing Associate Review

My role involves caring for people who suffer with their mental health. The role involves assisting the nurses with admission of patients, administering medication, creating risk assessments and care plans and taking patients on leave. It also involves coordinating shifts, checking staffing levels and attending ward round. Other duties include being part of the response team which assist with medical emergencies and violence/aggression incidents

I have learnt some new skills including taking vital signs and administering medication however the training has been very poor. Despite repeated requests to learn about different things such as coordinating a shift, creating care plans or risk assessments. I am often told the ward is too busy or am forgotten about.

I do not enjoy my programme. I wish I had never started this programme. I acknowledge that the Covid 19 pandemic has caused issues however even before the pandemic, the communication from both my trust (South London and Maudsley) and the university has been appalling. Even during the application process for this job, the communication was so poor, leaving myself not knowing if I had the job or not causing much stress and anxiety

My programme is very badly organised/structured. Modules that should be taught at the start of the programme are put at the start of the second year. Communication again is awful. The way many lectures are delivered is very poor with lectures just reading PowerPoints and not engaging the class at all.

The support I have received from my employer has been poor. Training is poor and have been let down many times when wanting to learn new things. When our cohort have had meetings we are asked are there any issues. Our cohort tell our trust the problems. The trust responds that we will be fine, don’t worry about it.

The support I receive from my university has been poor overall. I have received conflicting answers when asking questions about my course. Our Cohort has recently been told that we need to documenting our off the job training. We find out that we should of been documenting this off the job training since the start of our course but have not been told to do it until now (part of the way through our second year). Poor communication again

I feel that some modules we have been taught such as ‘Pharmacology’ and ‘Deteriorating patient’ have helped with my module. However I feel other modules could be shortened such as ‘Health and Well-being’ and ‘SLIP’. I often feel I do not get the opportunity to practice what I learn despite repeatedly asking

My trust offer limited extra curricular activities. Our ward has had one social event since I started almost two years ago. There are no sports teams that I am aware of or professional networking events. The ward does get involved in events such as Black History Month and does bring food in during Christmas time

No

I would not recommend working for South London and Maudsley NHS Trust due to the poor on the ward training, poor apprenticeship communication, low pay, understaffed to the point where it does not feel safe to work on the ward. Poor working environment where breaks are often missed and unpaid overtime is common. Also a toxic work team environment do not help. However I have heard positive things from other NHS trusts

My advice would be to see if they can volunteer if possible in the area they are working to get a feel for working conditions and what the job involves. If the job or team does not feel right, leave before you feel trapped. Make sure the correct job description has been uploaded by recruitment before applying as my dealings with HR/recruitment have been terrible.