Work Experience

At Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust we understand how difficult it is to decide on your future career. If you are considering a career in health, we are keen to help you take the first steps into a truly rewarding career. We offer a range of work experience opportunities in both clinical and non-clinical areas as well as information sessions to inspire and support you to make those important decisions.   These opportunities will give you the chance to shadow colleagues and get to see what working in an acute healthcare setting is really like.

It is often difficult to offer placements in clinical environments to those students who are under the age of 16 and we therefore offer Year 10 Work Experience Weeks throughout the summer term. These are classroom-based weeks where you will meet a variety of health professionals who run interactive sessions as well as spending time in the simulation ward, tours of clinical areas and engagement with other health and social care providers in the County. If you are interested in a non-clinical placement in areas that are not “patient facing” e.g. finance, administration, estates etc. we can offer you placements in the relevant departments.

For anyone who are aged 16 and over (17 for certain areas e.g. Paediatrics/theatres) we can offer a more bespoke placement in your area of interest. These placements will range from a half day tour up to 1 week’s shadowing experience depending on the area and capacity at the time.

We also offer a range of information sessions throughout the year to give you an insight into various roles and the opportunity to ask questions before seeking a more in-depth placement. There are advertised through schools and colleges as well as on the Get into health and care Facebook page and the SW health and care careers website www.swhealthandcarecareers.co.uk.

As we are the only acute hospital in Cornwall, we regularly receive over 500 applications every year for placements. To help us manage these we run a centralised process for organising work experience. This is to ensure that applications are managed in a fair and equitable way, and everyone has a meaningful experience with us. More importantly it allows us to balance your needs while being mindful of the very busy environment our colleagues work in and the impact these placements may have on the delivery of patient care.

If you are interested in applying for a work experience opportunity, please complete the online application form at www.getintohealthandcare.co.uk and we will respond to your request as soon as possible. Alternatively, if you any questions, please do not hesitate to email rcht.getintohealthandcare@nhs.net.