Rebecca tells us her career journey from a Temp to a Diagnostics Programme manager

My career journey starts back when I was choosing my GCSEs and A Levels. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do, I knew I loved sport and I enjoyed classes like geography, business studies and science. I also enjoyed doing coursework and getting stuck into a project. I joke now that I did know I didn’t want to work in an office or a hospital but that is because I didn’t really know what opportunities were out there.

I decided to do Sports Therapy at university and after graduating I found myself working for a professional football club and for a non-league football team. Unfortunately finances at the professional club meant that they couldn’t keep me on and I had to look for other work alongside my evening and weekend work in football.

I joke now that I did know I didn’t want to work in an office or a hospital but that is because I didn’t really know what opportunities were out there. I remember now walking into the office for the first time with literally no idea how use a photocopier, use Outlook or even that there were so many administration roles within the NHS - working in the NHS means working in a hospital right? Wrong! I was based in an office in the centre of Welwyn Garden City and I found myself working along finance teams, contract managers, communications, public health, IT, continuing health, pharmacy and so many more all playing a crucial role in the smooth running of the health and social care system.

My first role was data entry for the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS for short). The team helped provide information and resolve issues for patients, their families and carers. A job as a PALS Officer came up so I applied and got the job. I learnt so much about how the health and care system works and my confidence and communication skills grew.

I spent several years in this team and undertook a variety of roles including patient complaints and patient safety. There are thousands of contacts with the health and social care system every day and the vast majority happen with no issues but on occasion things do go wrong and it is important that we learn from these incidents and prevent them from happening again. These roles could be challenging but I always felt like I was making a difference.

After a while I started to think about my next challenge and decided to move into project management. It is worth adding that from my first application I didn’t get an interview but took on board the feedback and made sure I learnt from that for my second application where I was offered the job. Project management is so varied and I have worked on all sorts of projects from redesigning services, procurement to writing policies. I was able to do my Prince2 Project Management qualification to support my personal development. After having my son I was supported to return to work on a part time basis which gave me a good work life balance.

Again I started to think about my next challenge and when I saw the role of Health and Care Academy project manager come up I could see what a difference having something like the Academy and easy access to meaningful work experience would have made to me as a young person making career decisions. Through the Academy I have become aware of so many different roles in health and social care that I didn’t know about and the different routes like apprenticeships so there really is something for everyone in health and social care.

I have very recently progressed in my career again and am now a programme manager for diagnostics looking at how we can improve patient access to scans and tests with the overall aim of a faster diagnosis, treatment and improved outcomes.

I had never heard of project management as a career when I was younger but looking back now it is the perfect job for me and I have had the opportunity to work on so many different things and progress in my career at the same time. I think the most important skills needed for project management are good communication skills, being organised, enjoy problem solving and working as part of a team but don’t worry if you don’t have all of these as you learn and develop new skills along the way. I love the variety and seeing the difference I have made to health and social care services in my local area.