Allied Health Professional Education

We support your entire career through creation of positive learning environments, encouraging personal development, providing professional advice and guidance to staff. Here are just a few examples of how we can support your career and development at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

We have provided more than 1800 weeks of undergraduate placements in the last year. To support opportunities for leadership development the AHP Education team has provided alternative placements focusing on leadership, where undergraduates were supported to lead on a project such as creation of a simulation guide, including resources developed and hosted on GOLD LMS: Log in to the site (goshgold.org).

A successful hybrid clinical simulation and clinical placement for dietetic students was facilitated by our Practice Educators. We run a monthly Student Forum to allow Allied students and apprentices to connect across the different professions. Students have benefited from guest speakers from within the Trust, with topics such as speak up for safety, sustainability, research and how to prepare for an interview.

Pre-preceptorship is a period of preparation to support students to transition towards employment; it introduces and continues into preceptorship, which ensures a period of structured support at key points of career transition. The purpose of preceptorship is to provide support, guidance, and development for all newly registered practitioners to build confidence and competence as they transition from a student to an autonomous professional.

We provide support to the supervisors who have Allied Health apprentices within the Trust. Find out more about apprenticeships at GOSH.

We deliver Student Supervision Courses every year, which focus on developing the knowledge and skills of educators in promoting learning of students in any environment. Also, the team runs Workplace Supervision Courses which include an introduction to clinical supervision, the various models adopted and how to ensure supervision is effective for both the supervisor and supervisee.

We have our own bespoke Band Six Allied Health Development Programme which was developed and launched in September 2022. The programme has been instrumental in improving job satisfaction, wellbeing, and retention of staff. The priority is excellence in education, which aims provide learning in the 4 pillars of practice. The training uses interactive and practical elements to ensure learning can be taken back and implemented into the workplace (overall average feedback 4.3/5). We are currently working on developing a programme for Band Seven Allied Health staff.

In 2022 we were successful in obtaining funding from NHS England (formerly Health Education England) to implement the Allied Health Support Worker competency, education, and career development framework. This supports the delivery of clear and consistent access to high-quality learning and career progression for support workers. Through a training needs analysis, we identified and provided recommendations on resources that would support training and development, and access to clearer career progression. Resources were showcased at the first Allied Health support worker event hosted by us.

The GOSH NHS Kickstart Above and Beyond Career Events will be shared widely, focusing on our local boroughs in the first instance and will then start reaching further afield. The event has stalls for different professions, including Allied Health, Healthcare Science, Nursing, ICT, Apprenticeships and more. It is a space for students to ask questions and find out more. The aim for these events is to provide career information for young people aged 14 and above (Year 9 and above).

The Allied Health Young Visitors Programme is an opportunity for young visitors aged 16-19 years to apply for work experience at GOSH. It launched in October 2023, and it is the first of its kind, previously only available for young visitors interested in medicine. It aligns with the NHS England Widening Participation It Matters and AHP strategies to promote AH and attract a diverse local workforce, as well as the NHS Long Term Plan.