Apprenticeships are a great way to grow and retain staff. Find out more about how to enrol and recruit staff onto an apprenticeship here
Recruiting an Apprentice
Recruiting an apprentice in primary care is an exciting way to bring fresh talent into healthcare while shaping the next generation of professionals! Unlike traditional hires, apprentices bring a unique eagerness to learn and grow, making them ideal for an environment that thrives on teamwork, learning, and patient care.
With the right mentorship, they quickly become an integral part of the team, offering new ideas and perspectives while getting real-world experience. This also creates an opportunity to pass down skills, values, and best practices to someone who might just be a long-term asset to the practice.
You can tailor their training to fit the specific needs of your practice, whether it’s enhancing patient services or streamlining workflows. And for the apprentice, they’re not just working a job; they’re building a career, contributing meaningfully, and getting paid to learn while nurturing the future of healthcare!
Benefits of Apprenticeships
Key benefits of employing an apprentice:
1. Growing your workforce - 90% of apprentices stay with their employers upon completion of their course and nearly one quarter of apprentices go on to further develop their careers within 12 months of completing their apprenticeship.
2. Aid staff retention - As well as helping you to gain the right kind of skills you need for your business, employing an apprentice can also aid staff retention, providing you with skills staff for the future.
3. Tackle a skill shortage - Apprenticeship schemes help employers ensure that they get exactly the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need while growing a talented and engaged workforce. Apprenticeships also help fill the skills gap within their current workforce and enable development in areas beneficial to the apprentice and the organisation.
4. New energy - Employing an apprentice can add a whole new dimension to your workplace, bringing with them a fresh perspective and new ideas. This in turn can encourage existing employees to undertake further development to enhance their career.
5. Benefits of ongoing and personalised support - The apprentice will be assigned an assessor who is the person responsible for setting all of their work, marking it and guiding them through their course. They are there to answer any of their questions at any point and provide them with support tailored to suit their needs. They will also want to know where you see them progressing and will support that development.
Stages of Hiring/Enrolling
There are several steps to taking on an apprentice:
- Choose an apprenticeship for your business or organisation, if you’re not sure what standard would fit let us know, we can help!
- Find an organisation that offers training for the apprenticeship you’ve chosen. We have a number of connections in the local area with outstanding apprenticeship providers.
- Check what funding is available for training and other costs to your organisation.
- Advertise your apprenticeship – you or your training provider can do this through the find an apprenticeship service.
- Select your apprentice and make an apprenticeship agreement and commitment statement with them.
Requirements:
When employing an apprentice, they must be.
- 16 or over.
- Not already be in full-time education.
- Live in England.
They can start an apprenticeship whether they are starting their career, want a change or looking to upskill in their current job.
Apprenticeships must last for at least a year. They can last up to 5 years depending on the level the apprentice is studying.
Gifted Levy
Gifted Levy refers to a system where international recruitment agencies pay a fee, or levy, to the NHS when they recruit healthcare professionals from abroad. The aim of this levy is to fund initiatives that address healthcare staffing shortages and support sustainable workforce growth within the NHS, often by reinvesting in domestic healthcare training and recruitment efforts.
Here's an outline of how it works:
- Recruitment Agency Contributions: International recruitment agencies that help NHS trusts bring in overseas staff are required to pay a fee (the levy). This helps the NHS offset the immediate and long-term costs of integrating foreign healthcare workers.
- Supporting Domestic Workforce Growth: The funds raised through the levy are often reinvested in training, development, and recruitment initiatives within the NHS. This includes bolstering resources for UK-based training programs for nurses, doctors, and other healthcare staff.
- Ethical Recruitment Considerations: The NHS follows an ethical recruitment policy, which means they avoid active recruitment from countries that have critical shortages of healthcare workers themselves. The levy framework helps to ensure that when international recruitment is necessary, it aligns with global best practices and principles set out by the World Health Organization (WHO).
- Workforce Planning and Sustainability: By providing a funding source through the levy, the NHS can better balance its need for international staff with efforts to stabilize its workforce in the long term. This levy approach is one component of a larger workforce strategy to address staffing shortages, improve working conditions, and ensure high-quality patient care.
- What Apprenticeship training can be paid by the apprenticeship levy transfer? Any registered apprenticeship standard can be funded through the apprenticeship levy transfer.
- Do the funds cover all the apprenticeship costs? The funds pay for 100% of the training costs for both clinical and non-clinical roles.
Apprenticeship Finances
All health and social care employers in Derbyshire can receive gifted levy to cover the costs of apprenticeship training costs. The funding goes straight to the apprenticeship training provider to pay them for apprenticeship delivery.
In addition to this, if you recruit an apprentice aged 16-18, or 19-25 with an ECHP, you will receive £1000, over two installments, from the government via your Digital Apprenticeship Service (DAS) account. If you recruit a care leaver aged under 25, you may be entitled to £3000. If you would like more information about how to access this funding please get in touch.
For up to date information regarding apprentices wages and employment rights please visit: Employing an apprentice: Pay and conditions for apprentices - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)