Publish date: 2 September 2022
Nurse apprentices who recently passed their degree training and registered as nurses have praised the Trust for helping to make their dreams come true.
Eleanor Trow, Agbenu Blessing Ejembi and Rupinder Sidhu have now completed their Bachelor of Science Nursing (mental health) degree with Honours and achieved Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) registration.
The group were the latest cohort to become registered nurses and join our growing workforce with many more due to qualify later this year.
Blessing graduated with a 2:1 grade and said it's a 'dream come true'.
She said: "After my results came through I received what I have been calling a double promotion, moving from band 3 to band 5."
Blessing has been working for the Trust for more than six years and has been based at the women service on the Melrose Ward.
She continued: "The journey to completing this course started after I saw an advertisement on the Exchange (staff intranet) asking staff who are interested in participating to contact one of our members of staff.
"I said to myself, why don't I just give it a go! I went to Broadmoor Hospital for an interview and ended up being shortlisted. I was then selected and invited for an interview at the University."
After passing the interview, Blessing was then selected to join the degree apprenticeship programme, completing it, despite the obvious setback of Covid-19 and all the difficulties it brings.
Blessing continued to work in forensics whilst studying and said: "It's not been an easy journey as I work with women who predominantly have personality disorders.
"Having two little children and living far from West London made things more difficult, but I am passionate about working with women and working on the Orchard unit."
Blessing, who is originally from Nigeria, says she intends to continue working for the Trust and praised the "great development opportunities".
Eleanor Trow said: "I have wanted to be a nurse for as long as I can remember. I initially studied nursing at university straight out of college in 2015 but after a few months decided that it was not for me. This was when I joined Broadmoor and realised I had a passion for mental health nursing. So when the opportunity to study nursing as an apprenticeship came up I applied. The Trust has been supportive throughout the program and it has been an enjoyable way to study."
Eleanor says she plans to stay at Broadmoor for the "foreseeable future" and that she enjoys the "nature of the work" and her team.
She added: "Studying via an apprenticeship is a good route to go down and would recommend it to anybody thinking of studying nursing. The experience you gain is invaluable and having a combination of theory weeks, placement weeks and time in your host environment makes it varied. It is also beneficial in regards to finances, due to still receiving a monthly wage."
Ali Webster, Deputy Director of Organisational Development, said: "We are so proud to have another three apprentices join our Registered Nursing workforce. Growing our own nurses through providing opportunities to our amazing healthcare support workforce is so important.”
She continued: "We have some amazing HCAs who already live our Trust values and are able to earn while they learn and transition more easily into registered nurses as they already have a great knowledge of the Trust and our patients.”
For career opportunities at West London NHS Trust please visit our vacancies page.