I had a keen interest in science and knew I wanted to work in a hospital. So after GCSEs I got a place on a two-year hospital apprenticeship in Stourbridge, attending college one day a week to do a level 3 BTec in pharmaceutical science and moved around different hospitals in the area to gain experience. After qualifying as a pharmacy technician, I rotated around the West Midlands’ hospital trusts and realised my passion was in pharmacy education. I completed my assessor qualification while at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, where I was pharmacy technician manager covering all chemotherapy requirements. I got involved in education and training and then moved to Walsall Manor hospital as the education and training manager. With no funding avaiIable I paid to do a one-day-a week, 12-week level 3 teaching qualification (equivalent of the current BTec level 3 Award in Education and Training) which focused on preparing to teach in the lifelong learning sector, at Dudley College. I then got my first full-time teaching post at Walsall College in 2014.
My management role at Walsall Manor helped - as a teacher you have to manage students in that learning environment, you visit students’ workplaces and liaise with their managers. Many procedures in the NHS and academia were very similar, such as the mandatory training you have to do. I also had a very supportive team leader.
I teach students on the level 2 (certifcate) pharmacy services assistants apprenticeship course, and the level 2-3 (diploma) pharmacy technician apprenticeships. Learners attend college courses one day a week. I teach one level 2 class and two level 3 classes for three days out of the four that I work each week; I spend the other day - normally Wednesdays - on workplace visits. I am also the department’s lead internal quality assurer and organise numerous endpoint assessments - the pandemic period has been my busiest time with students only recently starting to attend college again just to take exams.
As for syllabus content, the one-year level 2 course comprises six units spread over dispensing, managing staff, person-centred care, roles and responsibilities, and health and safety. The two-year level 3 course has 21 units - a mix of biology and chemistry, personal development, and then individual drug types such as cardiovascular, ear nose and throat, and infections. If students have not reached a certain level in maths and English, we book them in for hour-long sessions with functional skills tutors that lead up to an exam.
In my classes I teach 22 students on a Monday, 27 (Tuesday) and 26 (Thursday); on Wednesdays I have 4 students I visit every 4-5 weeks in their workplace. Our sales team deals with all the placements for our apprentices. They speak to pharmacy managers to ask if they’d like level 2 or 3 apprentices - we get a lot of repeat business.
We cater for the different needs of students working in community pharmacies and in hospital pharmacies. Community pharmacies are more patient-facing, you get to know your customers and you work in a much smaller environment. Hospitals have a much bigger turnaround with a constantly changing flow of patients (so you don’t get to know them so well) and many different areas, such as a large store and a procurement office that buys the medicines for the wards.
I switch my laptop on at 7am, catch up on email and prepare lessons. I go through any internal quality issues, attend pharmacy meetings once a fortnight, and standardisation meetings once every six weeks when we look at different aspects of the qualification to ensure we are all delivering to the same standard. First teaching session is from 10am to 12.30pm on zoom, followed by lunch and then back into session from 1.30-3pm. At the start of lockdown, students would log on and sit on zoom while doing their work but we now give them more time to study unsupervised rather than being ‘baby-sat’ - they undertake tasks that they enter on the college’s online portfolio system, Smart Assessor.
Under drugs and administration, we study ways to give drugs in the form of tablets, injections and patches - I ask level 2 students to look at the pros and cons of different methods. At level 3, students look closely at drug and drug/food interactions,. At the end of last term, for instance, they were learning about skin qualities, finding out about the functions of different skin layers. We also studied the eye and learnt about its parts and their different functions - when students are working online they get a workbook to use alongside each lesson, for which I supply a online presentation. There is an annual pharmacy show at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham (cancelled last year), which we tell students about. We also signpost extra learning opportunities run by organisations such as APTUK (an industry body for pharmacy technicians that offers students free membership and training during their course).
The different drugs used to treat different conditions.
I spend a lot of time on admin and paperwork but this is easing as we place more documents online - we now sign up students via the net. If a student is unhappy in their work placement, we try to work with them and encourage them to stay. Much of the time their problems can be easily solved. We go out to see them in their workplace and find they have often not spoken to their manager about an issue and that managers are very willing to help them out when we sit down and talk about it.
The number of successful students we have - our pharmacy pass rate is good. Our students also get really good pass rates when being observed for their endpoint assessments, particularly considering we’ve done some remotely during lockdown.
Be organised, follow procedures, be a good timekeeper, be able to highlight any errors, and have an interest in science and health.
An NHS background and mandatory training to qualify as pharmacy technician. You also need assessor and teaching qualifications - in addition I’d gained useful experience of teaching while working at Walsall Manor hospital as part of a morale-boosting exercise to find out what frustrated people and improve work practices.
Why do you want to do this job? What makes you want to enter further education?
The students! It’s so rewarding getting them through their qualification and then seeing them working and progress to level 3 posts in the sector. One lad asked me for a reference to go on to a pharmacy degree at Wolverhampton University and he got on the course as far as I know. That was a great feeling!
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