Estates Project Apprentice Review

My role is primarily project managing relocations, refurbishments and new builds across Southampton and Portsmouth. This means that I manage multiple projects at a time, ensuring they are delivered within the given time, cost and specified quality. I work with the client and service users a lot to understand their requirements to ensure that I the project is an improvement to their way of working so we can ultimately improve our quality of patient care across the organisation.

I have learned a lot of new skills, I communicate daily and work with others as a team to accomplish the projects objectives. I have learned how to work well under pressure and be resilient, in addition to being flexible to change. I am much more confident and have become a lot better at decision making. In addition to being a better listener and having the emotional intelligence to understand the point of views of others so we can work together more collaboratively.

I am really enjoying my programme, it pushes me out of my comfort zone and I learn so much more than my normal day to day duties. I believe it is helping me gain the skills and knowledge to have a fulfilling career and will potentially enable me to apply for higher level jobs in the future

The programme is somewhat structured, there are a lot of teething problems with it being a new programme and this has caused issues in the past but the majority of the staff are really helpful and do their best to support. I believe they could be much more organised when it comes to the EPA part of the apprenticeship and I felt this lacked structure and understanding.

I receive a lot of support from my employer. I get one day a week off from normal work duties so I can attend university. I also get the opportunity to shadow others to improve my knowledge and the apprenticeship team are supportive in rectifying issues I have experienced with the university.

I receive a lot of support from my training provider. I have a tutor who performs a review every three months to see how I am doing and what support I need. There is also a study support team on site who I can contact at any time to review my work or discuss issues. Furthermore there is a librarian who is great in helping me reference properly and finding relevant books and articles to help me with my studies.

I believe that this qualification has helped me a lot in performing better at my role because it teaches me much more than my normal day to day duties so I have been able to take on much more responsibility which would not have been possible if I had not studied this qualification.

I do not believe there are any social activities or professional events I can get involved in, or if there are these have not been communicated well. I do see events for clinical services, however these are not applicable to me because I am not a clinical service. However there are lots of courses I can attend in leadership and project management which would help me gain more knowledge to help with my role.

Yes

I would recommend the NHS to any of my friends and family because it is so rewarding working for an organisation that provides care to those in my community. I feel that I make a real difference to both staff and patients from my role and this keeps me motivated and committed. There are some lovely people here in the nhs and overall it’s a great place to work.

The application form is intimidating because it is quiet long. However it is important that people take the time to complete this thoroughly and make effort to link your knowledge and skills with the job description and person specification because this is needed to really prove you can do the job. I gave a lot of examples too and I this helped me prove I have the ability to carry out the job. Don’t be scared to sell yourself!