NHS Oxford

Our Trust is dedicated to supporting employee development and career progression by offering access to a range of learning opportunities, including clinical and professional development, vocational qualifications, and leadership training. Employees receive annual personal reviews and development plans to aid their growth and are encouraged to expand their skills and take on new responsibilities through our career framework. This framework enhances job satisfaction and career advancement, allowing employees to either advance in their current roles or retrain for new ones. We provide training at various locations, including our Learning & Development Centre and sites across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Wiltshire, ensuring accessible learning for all staff. 

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Our Apprenticeship opportunities are available to both new and existing staff, and offer a fantastic opportunity to earn while you learn. Apprentices work in their normal roles for the majority of the week, dedicating a minimum of six hours to study. The study time includes various learning tasks directly related to their job, ensuring the programme is practical and relevant. Throughout the programme, apprentices build a portfolio of evidence to demonstrate how they meet the national criteria, and there are no fees—apprentices are paid for their study time within working hours.

Apprenticeships

In Oxford Health NHS foundation trust we deliver a preceptorship programme, called the Flyer programme. The purpose of preceptorship is to provide support, guidance and development for all newly registered nurses and allied healthcare professionals in the first year after qualifying.

The Flyer programme achieves this by combining 3 elements:

·  Monthly interprofessional Flyer programme workshops

·  Monthly one to one support from a preceptor

In essence, the Flyer programmes provides a supportive framework that empowers newly registered professionals to thrive in their roles and contribute effectively to patient care.

Flyer Preceptorship Programme

As a proud teaching Trust, we are committed to providing a Safe Learning Environment for all learners, in alignment with NHS England’s Safe Learning Environment Charter. We support pre- and post-registration learners from a wide range of healthcare professions. Our Practice Education Teams collaborate with universities, practice supervisors, assessors, and students to ensure high-quality, inclusive learning experiences. 

The Trust is highly committed to developing its staff through Continued Professional Development. It has robust systems in place to support registered practitioners to become Practice Supervisors and Assessors, therefore meeting regulatory, professional and revalidation standards.

Practice Learning

We recognise the value of clinical supervision in ensuring that our staff feel supported and developed to carry out their work in a safe and effective manner, improving the health of the populations we serve whilst looking after the wellbeing of our staff. Clinical staff can expect to receive clinical supervision at least every 8 weeks in line with Trust policy. 

Our Learning and Development team offer a range of development opportunities from e-learning programmes to help staff get the most out of supervision; to full day training to equip individuals with the fundamental skills and knowledge to become clinical supervisors. We have an on-line recording system which will enable staff to access their own personal records of supervision to support their continuing professional development and to provide evidence for their professional revalidation requirements.

Clinical Supervision

The Oxford Heath learning & Development department has a team dedicated management, leadership and non-clinical development. If you are new to a management or leadership role, or want to refresh some essential skills and knowledge, we run workshops, webinars and short courses.  We also offer a wide range of development to support administration & clerical staff.

For staff who want to develop further, we offer formal qualifications in management, leadership and administration through our Apprenticeship and Master’s level programmes. We also run team days for teams across the Trust.

Leadership, team and individual skills

All new non-registered clinical staff will receive an induction to the Trust that enables them to complete or refresh the Care Certificate.

The Care Certificate is a national certificate, which was introduced to provide the public with assurance that the staff looking after them have been assessed as having the correct introductory skills, knowledge and behaviours to enable them to provide safe, compassionate, high quality care.

The Certificate consists of 15 standards assessed in practice by completion of a portfolio. Completing or refreshing the Care Certificate, your local induction and having support from your clinical team will enable you to build on your existing skills and develop skills and behaviours needed for a successful career with Oxford Health.

The Care Certificate will help you contribute to the Trust achieving its values of being Caring Safe and Excellent.

Health Care Assistant / Support Worker Induction and the Care Certificate

Evolving Careers: Speed’s progression from Receptionist to Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner

I always knew I wanted to work in Mental Health, so I took a temporary position as receptionist at an ADHD and Autism clinic. Someone there had worked as a Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner previously, so she recommended the job for me and helped me understand what to expect, before I applied for the role online.  

I had some significant challenges to overcome during the apprenticeship. The learning was very fast paced, and taking what I was learning into my working days with such a quick turnaround was very tough. But I was able to take some time away from my role, and work with my tutors and managers to get my head around the materials, before coming back to work ready and able to do my job with confidence. I’m proud of myself for working through those struggles and learning more about myself. 

What qualifications and training have you gained during your apprenticeship?   

 I’ve gained a Post Graduate Certification in delivering low intensity cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) interventions, which was about 12 months of training on the job and in the classroom. 

What is your job role and how would you explain it to someone who doesn’t know anything about it?  

 I am a psychological wellbeing practitioner (PWP), which means I teach patients low intensity cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)-based interventions, and I also assess patients to see if they’re right for our service. What I do within that is quite varied, so over the course of a week I’ll do a few assessments with people, where I check their information and try to understand what mental health issues they’re facing. Then I have quite a lot of guided self-help sessions with clients, where I talk to them one on one for 30 minutes each week, mostly via the phone, but also via video call and face to face. In these sessions, I guide them through one of our low intensity CBT interventions, and they practice these techniques in the intervening week. I also do computerised CBT, where I review client’s progress through an online module via email, and finally I run courses, where I teach the interventions alongside another clinician to a group of up to 30 people. When I had the apprenticeship teaching sessions (usually one day a week), I learnt how to assess and treat patients, and this took the form of lectures, activities, and roleplays.  

What’s the best thing about your job and what gives you the most satisfaction?   

The best part of my job is seeing a patient have a ‘lightbulb’ moment, where they’re able to see their low mood or anxiety in a different way, and see how the intervention we’re going through can help them to reduce their mental health issues. When I run a course with up to 30 people, it can almost be overwhelming to have so many people having their lightbulb moments all at once, and to see that dramatic positive effect your guidance has been able to have on them! 

What would you say to someone else to encourage them into your chosen career? 

If you’re interested in mental health, this is a challenging but really rewarding route into it. You can really help people and get frontline experience where you speak to people from all walks of life and all sorts of intensities and types of issues. My advice would be to look up the role and training as much as possible beforehand, and to try to learn as much content as you can beforehand because it’s a lot of information you’ll be asked to take on! And also remember that the training year is hard because of the extra outside academic pressure, and things do get easier once you qualify. 

Learning and development

Apprenticeships

Flyer Preceptorship Programme

Practice Learning

Clinical Supervision

Leadership, team and individual skills

Health Care Assistant / Support Worker Induction and the Care Certificate

Read More about Speed’s Story

Apprenticeships