Hywel Dda Health Board will continue its healthcare apprenticeship scheme and has announced it is looking for another 50 apprentices.

The scheme was introduced this year with the first set of 40 apprentices starting in September.

It allows them to work within different departments of the health board while studying at college to end up as registered nurses.

It has been so well received that Lisa Gostling, the health board’s director of workforce, announced that the board would be looking for another 50 apprentices this year, while saying that the course for the current apprentices would finish 12 months early because of their success, meaning they would start work as healthcare assistants in September.

Ms Gostling said the scheme had been launched to help address recruitment issues in the health board area and provided opportunities to people who did not want to continue in full-time education but were interested in nursing as a career.

When the scheme was started it was not known what sort of impact it would have, but Amanda Glanville, senior workforce advisor, said: “It’s hard to believe our journey started less than 12 months ago, with the developing of the idea, designing the programme, carrying out the recruitment and running the assessment days.

“The apprentices you see before you are already making a difference in patient care.

“These apprentices are from our local community, so we are investing in our local population.”

She said that having the apprentices work in rotation in different areas, including therapies, healthcare, facilities and admin, gave the apprentices a grounding in multi-disciplinary areas and had “proved very, very beneficial”.

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