What opportunities are there for further work placements?
Vacation placements
University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust is offering six students the opportunity for a paid summer vacation placement at the end f Year 1. Two places will be available at Birmingham Childrens’ Hospital, and four at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham.
Full details of how to apply for one these posts (offering anticipated earnings around £3,000) will be available in November 2018, and appointments will be made early in Term 2 of the course, by which time you will already have had one term’s experience of placements at the Trust.
Transfer to an NHS Degree Apprenticeship Programme
At the end of your first year you may apply to transfer into Year 2 of a BSc Degree Apprenticeship with the NHS (continuing to study with Warwick on a part-time block-release basis while working as an NHS employee) or continue as a full-time student on this course.
Please note that the BSc Degree Apprenticeship is currently subject to final NHS approval, so this is not guaranteed, and those seeking apprenticeships will need to be accepted by NHS or other employers.
Subject to approval, this course will also be offered as an Integrated Masters course and, subject to meeting the progression requirements, students on the BSc course may have the option of transferring onto the Integrated Masters course and completing a fourth year at Level 7 for the award of MSci.
What careers can a Warwick degree in Health Sciences and Technology lead to?
Equipped with this degree, you could apply for career posts in the NHS, in private practice, in occupational health within industry and commerce, and in wider digital health practice. With further training you could apply for academic posts in universities.
The field of practice is opening up, as employers recognise that massive national investment in preventative medicine is unlikely to bear fruit unless there is more support for people to change their lifestyles. Doctors, nurses and allied health practitioners will often identify for patients the ways in which their lifestyle needs to change, and may ‘prescribe’ smoking cessation, weight loss, exercise, dietary changes, etc, but these clinicians may not be able to support change effectively. Often they do not have the time, as emergency care pressures are competing, and they may not have the broad range of skills with which you will be equipped when you graduate.
A degree in health sciences and technology offers you more than the skillset offered by many who set up in unregulated roles as nutritionists, personal trainers or lifestyle coaches. You will be amongst the first to offer employers a university accredited training in high-level consultation skills, scientific training in relevant clinical physiology and behavioural science, as well as digital healthcare.
Early career roles could include:
- NHS Health and Wellbeing Scientist - supporting patients in many different areas of clinical practice, including care of ongoing conditions like diabetes, mental health problems, and smoking.
- NHS Health and Wellbeing Scientist - supporting health service staff. University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust for example, employing some 20,000 people, has recognised the need to invest in a modern Health and Wellbeing service for its workforce.
- Health and Wellbeing Scientist - in industrial Occupational Health Services. Many large employers are likewise recognising a need to invest in their people in this way as there is strong evidence of better health and wellbeing improving productivity
- Health and Wellbeing Scientist - in Community Health Projects. Sustainability and Transformation Projects (STP’s) are collaborations between health and social services to improve health in the community. Increasing recognition that many of these projects depend on supporting change in individuals has led to demand for trained practitioners. You will already have experience of working on an STP as part of your training.
- Health and Wellbeing Scientist - in Private Practice. Your training should equip you to provide a first class service to those willing to pay to improve their health and wellbeing.
Later career roles could include:
- Health Service Management
- Digital Healthcare and Health Informatics (following further training)
- Focus on a particular aspect of Healthcare Science such as dietetics (following further training)
- an academic career (following further training)
- Graduate-entry Medicine