The theme for this year’s National Apprenticeship Week is ‘Skills for Life’ and we would like to showcase how apprenticeships can help to provide a wide range of skills to boost your career progression. Hear from some of our current apprentices at NELFT about their experience.

On Monday 16 January, Leyton Orient’s Head Coach, Richie Wellens, visited our Coping Through Football initiative to speak to participants and take part in the session.

As part of this scheme, we will offer 28 (full and part time) paid work experience opportunities to Psychology Graduates from underrepresented backgrounds in Psychology. Part of the NHS Long Term Plan is to improve the diversity of our workforce to better represent communities we serve. We therefore particularly welcome applications from ethnic minorities, those from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds including first-generation graduates and care leaves and those who have caring responsibilities.

Jumping out of a plane may not be on everyone’s bucket list but for one young woman this was an achievement not just conquering the skies but also a way to say thank you to those who helped save her life.

Lauren suffers with an eating disorder, Anorexia Nervosa. The fact that she knew she had to be weighed in order to be able to take part in her sky diving fundraiser was a scary step for her but one she was able to take because she had been given the ability and confidence to move forward due to the help she received from the All Age Eating Disorders Service in Maidstone.

Construction work is under way on a new health and wellbeing centre in Hornchurch.

A ground-breaking ceremony took place to mark the official start of building work for the St George’s Health and Wellbeing Hub, off Sutton's Lane.

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Eileen Taylor as the new joint Chair across East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) and North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT). The appointment was made by the Council of Governors for each Trust following a recruitment process involving both Trust Boards, Governors, service users and stakeholders. 

The Coping Through Football project was recently featured on the BBC World Service as part of the radio programme 'People Fixing the World'.

I’d like to start my blog this week by saying how heart-warming it was to see and hear so many thank yous and acknowledgements being shared across the organisation as part of our NELFT Thank You Week last week.

It has definitely felt like winter this week with the cold weather, I do hope you have been managing to keep warm. Our message has of course been to stay safe and to work from home where you are able. However, I do want to thank all of our colleagues who don’t have the ability to work from home because they are on wards or out in the community supporting our patients. I am so grateful for your efforts to ensure we are delivering the best possible care. Please do look out for each other and of course any of our patients who may be struggling in these cold temperatures.

This week I want to thank colleagues across the Trust for all you are doing to support our patients and the delivery of safe services as I know we are feeling the pressures of winter, particularly as we work to support our acute trust colleagues and their busy emergency departments. I would like to assure you that we are working hard with our partners to look at how we can improve processes to reduce these pressures where possible.

I can hardly believe this is my first blog post of November and how quickly October has flown by.

The weeks seem to be flying by at the moment and I can hardly believe we are in the last week of October already. That means that our Black History Month celebrations are drawing to a close and as well as encouraging colleagues to attend sessions if you haven’t already, I would also like to thank everyone who has been involved in the organisation and promotion of the events. It has been good to see so much activity and to see people coming together across NELFT to celebrate as well as educate.

It’s been another busy week here at NELFT and one that has been full of awareness days that colleagues have been celebrating and raising awareness of across the Trust. I have found it really informative seeing the Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) campaign led by Christopher Tuckett, our Associate Director of AHPs and the team, to mark National AHP Day that happened on Friday. It has been great to see so many of our AHPs showcased via this campaign and encouraging others to consider one of the many varied roles available to work with us as an AHP.

This week is National Work Life Week. At NELFT, we put initiatives in place, to ensure colleagues can balance work and home life. Our flexible working and agile working models enable staff to thrive. Coupled with our excellent training and development opportunities, our colleagues can progress their career, being supported every step of the way in their personal and work lives.

Apprenticeships are available within both clinical and non-clinical areas across NELFT. Some of the job roles we currently run apprenticeships in include Health Support Worker, Nursing Associate, Business Administrator, Assistant Accountant, Data Analyst, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapist and many more.

At NELFT we also support our current employees with continuing professional development opportunities where they can complete an apprenticeship in a topic that supports their current job role such as Team Leader, Senior Leader and Nursing Top Up.