The awards were held during National Apprenticeship Week, which the Trust also participated in by celebrating previous apprentice successes and highlighting the ongoing hard work of our current apprentices.
Dawn Cochrane won the award for the Apprentice who has made the Greatest Progress – and was also named North East Apprentice of the Year.
This meant she went on to represent the North-east during the national Apprenticeship Awards held in London.
Kate Harrison, Training Advisor and Assessor in the South Tees Widening Participation and Learning Team, said: “We were over the moon that South Tees was also successful with Dawn’s achievement of the overall award for ‘North East Apprentice of the Year’ and went to London to represent the North East at the National Health Education England NHS Apprenticeship Awards.
“Jayne Robbins, one of our Health and Business Administration Level 2 Apprentices, was also nominated as Intermediate Apprentice of the Year at the regional awards.
“Our team is very proud of this success, which it hopes to build on by continuing to support a wide range of apprentices, work experience programmes and volunteers across our hospital sites.”
Since the academic year 2006/2007, South Tees’ Widening Participation and Learning Team has welcomed 369 apprentices, of which 265 have completed their apprenticeship programme; and 64 are still in the process of completing their apprenticeship.
The number of participants is also increasing year on year, and during National Apprenticeship Week the team raised awareness of the availability of apprenticeship programmes and celebrated its successes.
“More and more departments and wards are taking advantage of the excellent opportunities offered by the vocational training programmes every year,” said Katie.
“We would encourage anyone within the Trust who wants to talk to us about further opportunities to employ apprentices to contact us.”
For more information on NHS apprenticeships, visit: www.stepintothenhs.nhs.uk