August 18, 2022: As young people today receive much anticipated exam results, St John Ambulance is reminding them that joining the NHS Cadet scheme is a fantastic route in to a successful career in the NHS and the 350 different careers available.
In partnership with the NHS, St John Ambulance's new cadets programme consists of two pathways: Foundation (for 14–16-year-olds) and Advanced (for 16–18-year-olds) to provide young people with the opportunity to explore roles in healthcare.
The NHS is widely recognised as one of the largest employers in the world – and with over 1.3 million staff, it is also one of Europe’s biggest employers. The NHS offers over 350 exciting and challenging career opportunities - no matter what your interests, skills or qualifications.
NHS Cadets Programme Manager, Emily Whyte said, NHS Cadets has been created to encourage young people to think again when it comes to volunteering for the NHS and a career in the healthcare industry – this could include a clinical role or one of the many support roles from catering, comms, accounts, site maintenance, deliveries, electrical and DIY roles – the NHS offers hundreds of different roles beyond the medical roles most of us tend to think of.
NHS Cadet Faleeha Arobi, 17, Bradford, said, I would like to have a career in the NHS so I thought that the programme would be really useful in giving me some useful skills and experience. We have learned a lot of transferable skills like leadership, empathy and communication which have all been really useful to me as well as learning valuable first aid and about different illnesses. Even if you don’t want a career in health care, the skills are universal. Knowing that there are around 350 various roles in the NHS that we could apply for, gives us so many options we may not have even known existed beforehand.
The long-term goal of NHS Cadets, which launched in September 2020, is to reduce health inequalities as well as encourage an interest and a route into NHS employment, beginning with health volunteering for young people who had never previously considered volunteering or a career in the health care sector.
To find out more about the NHS Cadets, visit Join NHS Cadets | St John Ambulance (sja.org.uk)
