My experience working as an NHS Healthcare Assistant
The majority of pre-med and medical students would have thought about working as a healthcare assistant at some point to gain valuable experience for their journeys. I’ll be exploring my 8 year experience working as an HCA in the NHS along with advice & tips on how to apply and how to make the most of the role for your medicine application and career moving forward.
Most doctors who have worked as a healthcare assistant can agree that this role is incredibly valuable during their medicine journey. It allows real insight into the duties of a doctor and hands on experience with patients. Becoming an HCA solidified my decision to pursue medicine.
🏥 Roles & responsibilities of a healthcare assistant
A healthcare assistant (HCA) (also known as auxiliary nurse or nursing assistant) works under the supervision of registered nurses or nursing associates.
HCAs are primarily responsible for the following:
- Assisted daily living (ADLs) such as washing, dressing and toileting
- Supporting patients with their nutrition
- Making patients beds and ensuring a clean bed space area
- Emotionally supporting patients and their families
- Last offices (care after death)
- Perform clinical observations (blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen levels, temperature, weight)
- Blood glucose and ketone monitoring
- Removal and insertion of cannulae
- Electrocardiogram (ECG) tests
- Phlebotomy
📄 Interview and application process
Qualifications
- GCSEs A-C or 4-9 essential
- Completed CV essential
- Reference (usually academic or previous workplace) essential
- Completed NVQ Level 3 or commitment towards one
- At least 1 year of healthcare experience (including volunteering or shadowing)
- Competency sign-off sheet
- Care certificate
- Experience in the speciality you’re applying for
Application process
Before applying you should think about the following…
Contract length and type of experience – Websites like Indeed and Trac.jobs primarily advertise full or part-time contracted jobs which may be more beneficial during a gap year or if you’re a mature student requiring a permanent income. Whereas trust specific websites will also advertise contractual work but will have additional information about joining the ’nurse bank’, this type of work is more suited to students who require flexible, zero-hour contracts.
The type of speciality that would interest you – If you’re looking to apply for a full or part-time contracted role typically you will work on only one ward. Try to find a speciality that you find interesting or feel would benefit your application to medicine more. If you’re applying to the ‘nurse bank’ you will be able to book a variety of shifts in different wards. For me, I needed a contracted role and applied to the Acute Medical Unit (AMU) with the intention of seizing clinical opportunities and close interaction with doctors/consultants. Continue reading to find out more about my experience working in different specialities →
Interview
The interview is to gain some idea of your personality and whether you have the right characteristics to work as a HCA in the NHS. Interview layout is varied between trusts but usually you’ll have two parts of the interview:
1. Maths and English test – This will happen before or after your interview and you may need to complete this in the ward you’re applying to or you’ll be asked to visit a test centre. The numeracy component assesses your competence in simple addition, multiplication and subtraction equations such as filling in fluid balance charts or simple conversions. The literacy component assesses comprehension skills such as reading a large paragraph of text and extrapolating relevant information. If you have previous NHS experience, you won’t be asked to complete this section.
2. The actual interview – The interview primarily consists of 2-3 staff members, usually a matron and two senior nurses, lasting ~20 minutes. In the past, interviews were typically done in person but since Covid-19, most interviews are conducted online via MS Teams or Zoom.
Some types of questions you may be asked during the interview could be:
- Motivation to become a healthcare assistant
- Your skills, attributes and qualifications
- Knowledge about the speciality, ward itself or hospital
- Knowledge of NHS values and trust specific values
- Scenario-based questions
Post-interview
Unfortunately, this is the most time consuming part of the application process. Usually, they’ll let you know if you’ve received a job offer within 30 days. If you’ve been given a job offer, you’ll be asked to submit various documentation to prove your identity and right to work in the UK, as well as an enhanced DBS check, uniform ordering, reference checking, health check and training.
It can take 2-3 months from when you first apply to eventually being let out onto the wards.
👩🏼⚕️ My own experience working as an HCA
Specialities I’ve worked in
Acute Medicine (AMU) was by far my favourite ward and is why I solidified my decision to study medicine in the first place. It’s a fast-paced environment, you see so many different patient presentations, interact with many different types of doctors and often you can see the patient getting better immediately after treatment (perfect for ADHDer’s) and generally, no matter which hospital you’re in, the team is incredible.
I’ve also had the opportunity to work in and thoroughly enjoyed:
- Older people’s medicine
- Critical care (HDU, ITU)
- Respiratory
- Maternity
- Cardiology
- Trauma and Orthopaedics
- Endocrinology
- Ophthalmology
- Gynaecology
- Telemedicine
- Theatres
Opportunities & learning
I have had incredible opportunities provided to me during my time as an HCA. During my time on AMU, I delivered teaching sessions on fluid-balance for medical students because a Consultant was impressed with my documentation and decided to use it as the ‘gold-standard’ for the hospital. Also, my phlebotomy, cannulation and electrocardiogram training were fully funded and during my time in telemedicine, I was able to get involved in an NHS England service evaluation research project with subsequent presentation and publication.
However, my most favourite experience was during my ophthalmology shifts when working 1:1 with a consultant ophthalmic surgeon who allowed me to scrub into his surgeries, he’d spend hours teaching me after I told him I was interested in surgery. He even went out of his way to write me a letter of recommendation and bought me coffees by the dozen!
Negatives of working as an HCA in the NHS
All job roles will have their negative components. For me, the long-shifts are gruelling. It can be nice to get all of your contracted hours completed within 2-3 days, but it means working 12.5 hours in order to do so. This can be especially taxing on your health and social life, particularly during the winter months when you leave home in the dark and come back in the dark!
When applying to the NHS, there’s an expectation to work night shifts and for some people, this can exacerbate medical conditions. If you have a medical condition… you can speak with your GP or workplace health and wellbeing to see if night shifts can either be reduced or eliminated entirely.
Some wards have longer inpatient stays than others such as orthopaedics and older people’s medicine, you can become attached to patients and their families so when these types of patients pass away, it can be very sad. As an HCA, you’re expected to perform last offices (care after death) which can be a haunting experience for anyone to deal with.
💭 Final thoughts & advice
Overall, I’d say my experience as an HCA has been positive and I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. It taught me valuable lessons, gave me a sense of purpose, community and gratitude that I wouldn’t have found in any other role which is testament to how great the NHS is. By far, my role as an HCA was an important element in my application to medicine, every interviewer was impressed.
My advice for any incoming HCA, especially if you’re pre-med… is to be proactive and keen. I was able to scrub into surgeries by showing genuine curiosity, landed a big role in a research project by asking the consultant if I could take part and worked in over 10+ specialities by just trying something new regardless of whether it would yield a negative outcome. You don’t need to feel silly, be honest and transparent, if you explain you’re interested in medicine and like to know more about XYZ, most of the time consultants, doctors, nurses etc are more than willing to give you opportunities.
If it wasn’t documented, it didn’t happen...
If you’re a pre-med or medical student and you’ve received or delivered extra teaching sessions, received verbal patient/staff feedback or been given an opportunity outside of your HCA role – don’t forget to get WRITTEN conformation such as certificates of attendances, a signed letter saying you took part in something or if a patient has feedback, simply ask if they’re willing to write this as a physical letter or email for you – this will help massively towards your medical portfolio.
Remember, be kind, compassionate and enthusiastic. You’ll be interacting with patients at their most vulnerable moments, even the smallest actions make the biggest differences.
