Healthwatch Tower Hamlets joined by two work placement candidates
In the last six months, Healthwatch Tower Hamlets have had the pleasure to offer four Tower Hamlets residents paid work placement opportunities for the period of two weeks.
Two of the placements were offered to residents with learning disabilities and two for working age residents (18-65 years).
The placements enabled the candidates to take part in a range of Healthwatch activities including creating promotional material for the Healthwatch website and social media channels, creating surveys on SmartSurvey, engaging with local people to find out about their experiences of using local health and social care services, inputting data into our Patient Experience Data base, take part in meetings with the local authority and NHS trusts, and much more!
Below you can read about two of our work placement candidates' experiences of working with us.
Q: How did you find out about the work placements at Healthwatch Tower Hamlets?
"I was recommended the Healthwatch work placement programme by my work coach at the job centre. It was an appealing opportunity for getting into the admin side of the healthcare field."
Q: What kind of things did you learn during your work placement?
"I learned how to approach members of the public to participate in surveys at GP clinics and hospitals, as this was something I had not done before. I was also able to familiarise myself with Canva and create promotional material like website articles and creating posters."
Q: Did the work placement improve your learning/confidence or knowledge in a specific area?
"I was able to improve my confidence in communication and my knowledge of health and social care issues. It was fascinating to see what measures are taken so that the issues can be addressed."
Q: What did you enjoy the most about the work placements?
"I really enjoyed working with the team at Healthwatch Tower Hamlets, they were all incredibly supportive and welcoming. In particular, I really enjoyed working on building the online surveys and learning how to properly format them. It was also quite informative to read the reports that Healthwatch had previously released."
Q: Has working with Healthwatch changed how you view health and social care services?
"Yes, definitely! Joining Matthew for the meetings provided an insight on how issues within the services can be improved and what is being done to ensure that. Whilst helping out with the patient experience work, I was made aware of the common issues that the public face with the health and social care services. This increased my interest in the field."
Q: How did you find out about the work placements at Healthwatch Tower Hamlets?
"I first came across Healthwatch a few months ago through friends who had used the services. And when an opportunity to complete a placement arose, I was very happy and looking forward to start."
Q: What kind of things did you learn during your work placement?
"I have spent my time here working on surveys, creating promotional materials and updating the social media accounts. Working within a friendly team, we also ventured out to GP surgeries and hospitals to gain feedback from patients about their services they used."
Q: Did the work placement improve your learning/confidence or knowledge in a specific area?
"Overall, this was a valuable experience where I hope to continue to develop the skills I acquired at Healthwatch. My time here at Healthwatch has really solidified my passion for wanting to work in the local community to improve health and social care."
