Jane Hadfield
On Monday, 1st April 2019, Jane Hadfield Chair of T Level Panel (Health) attended and spoke at a special launch event of the T levels ambassador network for T Levels at the House of Commons sponsored by the Federation of Small Businesses and the Dept of Education.
Excerpt from Jane’s speech below
For the student, T Levels and Industry placements are a fantastic opportunity and it’s so important that structured and meaningful industry placements offer young people great opportunities to gain valuable insights into the industry. This way they will be able to make informed decisions about their next steps on their career path.
For employers there is a great opportunity to tap into early talent and we have designed the outline content of the health and science T Level programme with entry into real, clinical roles in health and care. We will also know that the T Level student is actively engaged in the sector and is more ready for the world of work. Though the focus has been on health and science – the NHS careers team has identified 350 different job roles so we fully expect there should be opportunity across all routes! We really do see this as dovetailing with our growing apprenticeship offer.
However – we believe and are recommending to the department of Education that this needs a coordinated transparent planned approach to maximise the opportunity, so that T Level students have equal access to placements alongside other learners. The NHS and the social care sector have long standing expertise in providing quality learning environments and T Level students will be able to access this expertise. The learner will hugely benefit from the breadth and depth of the environment supported by mentors and managers who are experts in their field.
To make the most of this we need to build on current partnerships with education providers and create new partnerships too! Some employers – for example community and care providers will be small or medium enterprises – such as community services, primary care (GPS), independent providers, nursing and residential services, others are larger employers/ hospital trusts but all are part of the health and care family. The scale and complexity of the health and care system can be difficult to interface with.
We aim to ensure quality placements, and an excellent example of this is those rotating across health and care employers, enabling the learner to follow the patient and service user, in turn developing insight and experience of the health and care system, and clinical care pathways which cross the different settings. There is a great deal of early interest in the opportunity of T Levels around us from system leaders and employers themselves.
Want to know more?
Visit https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/introduction-of-t-levels/introduction-of-t-levels