Warwick Medicine A101 2019 Entry

According to the admissions tutor my role as a hospital pharmacist does, since its exposure to people with a myriad of health needs to whom I'm involved in the care of; albeit only pharmaceutical care.

They use VR first and get rid of people who didn't score the average or above the average score for VR for that round. They then rank by total UKCAT scores. Depending on that and how much work experience you have, they determine whether you are interviewed. You're sent the work experience questionnaire when you're invited for interview.

Assuming you're allowed to, could you share some details about this experience questionnaire? What questions do they ask? Thanks.

All they said on the open day is that they ask for a named contact, hours spent there and that it should be within the last 2 yrs. I'm not sure what it exactly looks like since I'm hopefully applying this september (if my ukcat is good).

Thank you for the reply. The "it should be within last 2 years" is actually a bummer for me as I got my main experience in 2017-2018. I finished working at the surgery around 6 months ago. That was where I was getting my main experience. This really forces me to apply in 2019. Ideally I wanted to work for a while and then apply. Having said that, I could always go back to the surgery and get some short experience to "refresh" my experience there.

All the best in your application!

Sorry, I was supposed to write the last 3yrs (just checked my notes from the open day). So for entry 2019, they want work experience from 15/10/15 to 15/10/18.

They require at least 70hrs of work experience too, which should be from at least 2 experiences. Completely forgot to mention that before.

I heard they do consider deferred entry depending on circumstances, so you could try applying this year? You'll just have to state in on your ucas application the reason why you'd like to defer.

And thank you!

Try NHS jobs/trac jobs and the volunteering page of your local NHS trust. I used them to get a place in a psychiatric hospital, and then directly applied to a hospice to volunteer there. Also, maybe consider other jobs instead of being an HCA. I'm hoping to get a job as an ECA for my gap year.

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Well I got a response and interview invite from the psychiatric hospital pretty quickly. I heard back from the hospice about a month after I sent off the application (initially thought they'd rejected me lol). But I didn't actually start either of them until 3 months after because of DBS stuff. I.e. I applied in late August/early September, and actually started at the hospice the week before I went home for the Christmas holidays, and didn't start at the hospital until January.

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It's not the deadline for experience though. I would suggest keep applying for jobs (strongly recommend looking into jobs with the ambulance service if hospital jobs are lacking) with the hope you find something that will let you start sooner. Also, anything voluntary (you may have better luck with DBS than me lol). If you can get enough to make your PS decent, you'll still have quite a long time until the interviews. Even Warwick ask you to fill in the experience form in December.

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I can't seem to get a job as a HCA in hospitals or even voluntary work? How did you guys apply for ur work experiences?? I only have shadowing in 2015 which is olddddd loooool

Hi I have 2 questions and would be super grateful if anyone could answer them...

1) I’ve read the Warwick work experience info, which says for 2019 entry applicants need “Hands-on experince in direct care of patients”. Would working as a community or hospital pharmacist count as this? Just pharmacists don’t tend to touch patients, but are definitely involved in their direct care

2) Any tips for getting part time jobs as a HCA?

For Q1, hospital pharmacist roles count towards the 50 hours of hands-on care. But Warwick told me via email that they also like to see a mixture of experience too where you're also caring for patients' physical and emotional needs too - and long-term volunteering at a care home, hospice or working as a HCA is seen highly in this regard.

If you did your pre-reg in a hospital, you could use that for the entire 20 hours 'shadowing' experience too!

Although community pharmacists certainly engage in meaningful patient consultation, give self-help and healthy living advice, and have AMAZING long-term rapport with their patients, I didn't specifically ask the admissions tutor about this since this role was not applicable to me. The role of a community pharmacist differs considerably to that of a hospital pharmacist and therefore it'd be best to email the admission to confirm if this counts towards their criteria. I don't want to give you any false info .

For Q2. I'll let others answer this since although I work with HCA's daily, I've never applied for the role myself! I did enquire about it though, and the matron for medical services at my Trust stated that if I was interested in a bank HCA-type position, she would try and secure me one somehow within either medical admissions or stroke rehabilitation. However, with me working full-time, doing on-calls/evenings/weekends, working on a post-grad course, volunteering and working on my medical application, it would have been unfeasible and unsafe for me to take on extra duties! So I guess this may something that you'd need to consider for your own situation too bud .

Best wishes.

Just taken mu ukcat. Average- 702.5 do you think this stands a chance?

Hi everyone

Im starting medicine at Warwick this September so if anyone has any questions about the application process then I’d be happy to answer any

Good luck!

Well done! Yes it should be good enough for UKCAT requirements - depending on whether you have scored above average in VR