Aspiring Nurse Completes Valuable NHS Placement

Head Girl at The Sixth Form College, Ellie Jones, recently completed a valuable work experience placement with the NHS at St Catherine’s Heart Support Service in Birkenhead.

Ellie, a former South Wirral High School student, has ambitions of studying Adult Nursing at Chester University after completing her studies at The Sixth Form College. Ellie is currently studying Health & Social Care and is also a St Johns ambulance cadet and has been volunteering at St Johns Hospice since November 2014 to help achieve her career goals. Ellie applied for the one-week placement at St Catherine’s Health Centre through the College’s Enrichment programme.

Ellie commented, “The placement was easily organised through the Sixth Form College’s Enrichment Officer Rowena Lovatt. Rowena posted a note about the opportunity in the student bulletin, so I collected an application from her. Rowena has also previously organised an opportunity for me at Liverpool John Moores University last December, which gave me the chance to shadow a current University student to see what a typical day studying Nursing would involve, which was brilliant.”

 

“My week with St Catherine's Heart Support Service team was by far the best work experience opportunity I have ever had.

The week consisted of working within a number of departments including the clinic, cardiac rehabilitation programme, living with heart failure, the gym and also visits to Arrowe Park hospital. Within these departments I observed electrocardiograms (ECG's), taking blood pressure and pulse rates, exercise prescriptions for those living with heart failure and who have had heart surgery, exercise tolerance tests and topic talks on how to maintain good heart health, such as nutrition and diet. Not only did I learn a lot from observing I was also taught clinical skills such as taking blood pressures both automatically and manually with a stethoscope, taking pulse rates manually and also automatically with pulse oximeters and how to fit leads onto a patient for an ECG. 

My main supervisor was very friendly and very thorough. In clinic she would explain to me the processes of the heart and how it works so she was then able to teach me about the different heart issues, such as atrial flutter, and how to identify them on an ECG. She also gave me lots of materials, like anonymous ECG papers, so I could take them home to learn from. Likewise other staff gave me materials such as booklets, information sheets and websites.

This experience was extremely valuable - Not many seventeen year old students going into nursing have basic clinical skills like taking blood pressures and pulse rates and not many aspiring young nurses are lucky enough to get the opportunity to work with such a vast array of service users, from more able users, to those with a disability and those more seriously ill and hospitalized. During the week I came across at least one example of all these types of patients. 

I will most certainly be writing about this experience on my UCAS application as the vast variety of experiences I have gained from this opportunity should hopefully set me aside from other applicants and make my application sound a little different and therefore stand out.”

Ellie Jones NHS Placement