Meeting employers’ needs

Support workers who achieve their assistant practitioner qualification don’t have to stop there, Charles and Tim explain. While they recommend any students work as assistant practitioners for a while to get experience, they can choose to progress on to a BSc in radiography immediately after becoming an assistant practitioner. Once they’ve done so, all they need to do is apply for HCPC registration.

After speaking to a wide range of employers, they discovered that the National Apprenticeship Standard for assistant practitioners needed more tailoring for radiographers. “A lot of employers said it’s just too generic,” explains Tim. “What we really want is more radiography-specific content. So that’s what we’ve done. We’ve validated that the programme has content specifically designed to support different professions, including radiography.”

Cumbria’s assistant practitioner course currently has three radiography-specific modules and has been running for four years, growing year on year. The first cohort was made up of 12 learners, but now boasts 38 students working towards their qualifications.

For the current and previous cohort, Cumbria has also begun accepting assistant practitioners who have worked in areas outside of projectional imaging – CT, MRI, PET/CT and even one who works in nuclear medicine. “Our programme is very flexible to their needs in terms of ensuring they meet the standards, even though they previously only worked in one modality,” Tim continues. “Allowing people to progress from any one area of radiography to being qualified radiographers has been the biggest change.

“That’s worked well, because we’ve got such great facilities at the university.”

Two fully working X-ray rooms call Cumbria’s campuses (Lancaster and Carlisle) home, allowing students to enjoy “robust” simulation work with phantoms and to work on positioning with each other. 

A vehicle to progress

As keen as Charles is to help apprenticeships flourish, he does warn that the course can be a bit of a double-edged sword. While students receive a wage and have their tuition fees paid for, apprentices are working full time while managing the educational requirements of a complete university course – which can be very demanding. But universities don’t just leave the students to it. “They get a lot of support from the university, and hopefully from the workplaces as well, to help them manage their time and achieve what they need to achieve,” Charles adds.

Assistant practitioners who are already well established in a certain modality are required to meet the whole range of requirements to become a radiographer – not just experiencing different imaging techniques, but also different levels of responsibility. Doing so can be daunting, but Charles says those who embrace it open up a huge range of professional options in the future. “On the whole, that’s never been a problem,” he continues. “People come to us because they want the experience of being a radiographer, and they embrace the challenge. They’re a lovely group to teach.”

Supporting assistant practitioners to make that change has been a fulfilling part of the job for Charles, who describes the apprenticeship as a “great mechanism for society”.

“This programme enables social mobility,” he says. “It enables people who haven’t been able to achieve at school for whatever reason – they’re working now, they’ve matured a bit, perhaps gotten the motivation they might not have had, or their circumstances have changed such that they’re now enabled to study. That social mobility is something we need.”

The advantage of working while studying is also an attractive one for prospective radiographers. Joining a three-year course to progress through levels four, five and six can be intimidating, or even inaccessible. Instead, Cumbria allows its apprentices to complete levels four and five to achieve their qualification and, if successful, gives them the choice of whether to continue on to level six. 

Charles explains that he sometimes has apprentices come to him and say they aren’t academic, and that’s why they’re nervous about the course. “We hear this phrase a lot,” he says. “Part of what we do is encourage them to think they can be academic. We’ve really proven that this year.”

Four of the University of Cumbria’s diagnostic radiography apprentice graduates, recently qualified as full radiographers, were in attendance at UKIO – and, in fact, had their poster presentations accepted into the showcase.

These posters were designed as part of a module run by one of Cumbria’s lecturers in medical imaging sciences, Kimberley Bradshaw. When Charles saw them, he urged them to submit. “These apprenticeships are the key,” he says. “It enables employers to grow their own workforce; to support and reward talent. It creates a meritocracy in a department, where people can see that, if you work hard, you’re able to progress. It motivates people, saying: ‘If you put this effort in, we’ll support you.’ Resources are shot in the NHS, but you can use apprenticeships as a vehicle for supporting and rewarding individuals to progress.”

Find out more about the University of Cumbria’s Diagnostic Radiography Apprenticeship course

Cumbria’s Diagnostic Radiography (Integrated Degree Apprenticeship) course allows qualified assistant practitioners working in medical imaging to advance their qualifications towards a full honours degree in diagnostic radiography, making them eligible to apply to the HCPC to enter their register as a diagnostic radiographer.

Accredited by the Society of Radiographers, the course combines work-based learning to progress clinical skills and behaviours with academic study to develop knowledge relevant to this field of work.

Apprentices continue to work as an employee at their place of work while undertaking the apprenticeship, including a minimum of 20 per cent ‘off the job’ training time to cover both university study time and clinical skills outside of the apprentice’s usual scope of practice.

Find out more online here.