The Student Room Group

NHS Work Experience

I am in S3 (age 15) and I want to pursue a career in Medicine. I contacted my local hospital with a request for work experience and they sent me back a form which said:
"The applicant should be in a S5 or S6 at school if attending full time education, except students on authorized educational service approved schemes e.g. AWARE who will be in S3 and S4".
What is AWARE? Will I need to wait until S5 to get work experience?
Thanks
It is normal to have to wait until you are 16 or 17 to do clinical area work experience in a hospital due to health and safety concerns. If you are younger some hospitals will let you do work experience only within the administration departments, so you would be shadowing secretaries etc, but would not be allowed with doctors or nurses or near wards or patients.

In the meantime try looking for volunteering opportunities at care homes or work experience at GP practices (some care homes and GP practices will accept under 16s, but not all). Even if all you are doing is reading to the elderly it is good work experience for your personal statement.
Good afternoon,

Have you tried phoning/emailing back the hospital you applied to in order to ask them what they mean by AWARE? We've tried to look it up quickly online for you, but can't find anything relevant. It could just be a widening participation scheme that younger students get signed on to.

As you are only 15, have you tried contacting your local NHS board (See the list of regions NHS sites on the right hand side of that link) and asking what your options are for volunteering in a hospital/medical environment?

Definitely do this over the phone, so you get a direct response!

If you can't get any relevant medical-related work experience, have you tried researching into volunteering at charity shops, or retirement/care homes?

We hope this helps,
The Medic Portal

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