Spire Norwich Hospital celebrates their apprentices during National Apprenticeship Week
11 March 2025
Spire Norwich Hospital celebrated National Apprentice Week recently by congratulating and presenting our class of 2024 apprentices with their certificates on successfully completing their courses under the Spire Healthcare’s apprenticeship scheme. These five high achieving colleagues took courses for a Registered Nurse degree, Senior Healthcare Support Worker, LEAP 3 Team Leadership and LEAP 5 Operations/Department Manager.
At Spire Norwich Hospital we currently have six apprentices. We have five of nurse apprentices in our wards, theatre and outpatient departments as well as a colleague enrolled on the Leap level 3 course. They all make a fantastic contribution to our hospital, bringing energy and enthusiasm, and they receive positive feedback from patients, colleagues, and consultants.
On Friday 14 February, 117 colleagues graduated from Spire Healthcare’s 2024 apprenticeship programme. Since our programme began in 2017, Spire has supported more than 450 colleagues through to their apprenticeship graduation – 2024 saw more colleagues graduate than ever before.
Spire Healthcare has 340 colleagues actively enrolled on an apprenticeship programme and two-thirds of those are on clinical apprentices. We run one of the largest, if not the largest, nurse apprenticeship programme operated by any single organisation in the country, and some graduates from the programme go on to work in the NHS, something we are proud of. We also have apprenticeships in biomedical science, physiotherapy, pharmacy, medical laboratory technicians, as well as non-clinical disciplines. Alongside our apprenticeship programmes, we offer many other training opportunities and student placements.
All these apprentices and trainees make a fantastic contribution to our hospitals and clinics, bringing energy and enthusiasm. Spire is truly committed to developing our colleagues and we recognise the positive patient experience these colleagues provide to the people they care for in our hospitals and clinics. None of this is easy – we do recognise how challenging it can be to balance a home life, with a busy work life and additional study time.
Our new nursing apprentices enjoy remote studying with The University of Sunderland, as well as placements in a wide range of nursing settings such as wards, outpatients, operating theatres, hospices, A&E and more. By developing new knowledge, skills and thinking whilst completing their degree, Spire’s nursing apprentices gain a broad experience of healthcare in England and be well-prepared for their future nursing career. The benefit of the degree apprenticeship route is the ability to earn while learning, with a starting salary of approximately £21,000 depending on previous experience.
Caroline Fox, Hospital Director, Spire Norwich Hospital said: “We are incredibly proud of our apprenticeship training programmes. Against a backdrop of national shortages in healthcare professionals, we’re aiming, through our continued investment in our apprenticeship programmes, to build a talent pipeline for our business and the broader healthcare sector. Importantly, these programmes contribute to the sustainability of the whole healthcare sector in the UK, because many of our graduates will go on to careers in the NHS and elsewhere – something we’re proud of as a net contributor to society.”
Spire Healthcare proudly works with our training partners University of Sunderland, BPP, Sheffield Hallam University, AC Training, Pier Training and University of Derby to develop and deliver our apprenticeship programmes.