Work Experience

For health, safety, and safeguarding reasons, applicants for work experience at the Trust must be at least 15 years of age when applying. Therefore we are unable to support applications for "Bring your child to work day" if they are under the age of 15 years old.

Applicants aged 15 can only undertake non-clinical placements , administration roles in non-patient facing areas.

Applicants aged 16+

Students can gain a clinically based healthcare placement such as outpatients’ clinic.

17-Year-Old and Over

All students must be 17 or over to have a placement on a ward. Students under 17 years are excluded from shadowing surgical placements, across all Trust sites.

They can also apply for the 3 Day Shadowing placement (excluding Obstetrics & Gynaecology and Paediatrics) careers in medicine and the 3 Day Surgical Placement, if the department agrees and feels that it is appropriate.

Applicants 18+

Placements in high-risk clinical areas – A&E, Maternity, Critical Care, Paediatrics etc. – can only be undertaken by those aged 18 and over.

If you are at school or college and have a keen interest in working for the Trust after your studies, or have completed your studies and are looking for some work experience, please get in touch using: mse.work.experience@nhs.net.

Here we can answer any questions that you may have regarding work experience. Once you have decided on your preferred site and department, there are some application forms to complete. Once we have received these, completed in full, we can support you with your application and advise you on next steps.

1. Application form completed by student and submitted to either Workbased Learning team or Medical Education Team, as appropriate, for processing – email copy as attachment to mse.work.experience@nhs.net or relevant Medical Education inbox (see below).
2. Workbased Learning or Medical Education team source a suitable placement based on applicant’s interests and service needs.
3. A work experience contract is drafted by the Workbased Learning team or Medical Education Team and sent to the supervising manager to review and sign.
4. Once returned, the signed work experience contract is forwarded to applicant to sign.
5. A Trust welcome letter is issued to the applicant confirming details of the placement and that the application process is complete and placement can go ahead as scheduled.

It may take up to three months to arrange a suitable placement – work experience opportunities cannot be facilitated at short notice, so please ensure that the application is submitted far in advance of the planned period of work experience.

All work experience placements must be arranged through the relevant team as above.  This is to ensure that the placement conforms with the Trust’s liability insurance, health and safety, and safeguarding policies. Can we please request that you don't arrange any placements yourself without liaising with the relevant team above.

These placements are dealt with by colleagues within the medical education team who can be contacted using the following email addresses for our respective hospital sites:

• Southend Hospital - mse.medical.education.suhft@nhs.net
• Basildon Hospital – laura.maidwell@nhs.net
• Broomfield Hospital - mse.clinicalobservers.sweplacements@nhs.net

Please send a copy of your CV and introductory letter to the team at the site you would be interested in applying to and they will be able to advise you further regarding the application process. Please note that you can only apply to one of our hospital sites. Further details are available on the medical education intranet pages.

These requests are managed by our medical education teams at Basildon, Broomfield and Southend.

You can apply to just one of our hospital sites.

All applicants for medical work shadowing must be over 16 years of age.  Please choose which site would be most suitable for you and send an introductory email along with your CV and contact details to the relevant medical education colleague as listed below.  Students aged 16 - 17 may only be accepted in certain areas. We receive many requests for medical work shadowing and waiting lists are in operation at all our Trust sites. Students will only be offered one medical work shadowing opportunity due to high demand. 

For all sites, the medical work shadowing placements are 1-3 days, consecutively.  Further details are available on the medical education intranet pages.

• Basildon Hospital - mse.medicalcareers@nhs.net
• Broomfield Hospital - mse.schoolworkexperienceplacements@nhs.net
• Southend Hospital - mary.bishop3@nhs.net.

Mid and South Essex Health and Care Academy offers an exciting opportunity for young people to gain exposure to the many professional roles available in healthcare. 

With a range of specialised training and education programmes, the Academy aims to help young people discover the career they are best suited, unlock their potential and equip them with the skills and knowledge required to pursue their chosen profession.

For more information about the Health & Care Academy see the below:

If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, please visit Volunteering.