A GP practice has been awarded the prestigious Centrica Top 100 Apprenticeship Employer 2017 at the National Apprenticeship Awards that took place on 18 January at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London.
The Alvanley Family Practice, a small practice with more than 5000 patients in Woodey, Stockport is also the regional winner of the Apprenticeships National Awards 2017.
Practice manager, Kay Keane said her practice was the only NHS practice to be awarded the prize.
She said: ‘We believe we are the only GP Practice in the Top 100, which makes us want to inspire practices even more to think about the Apprenticeship route for training of their existing staff and new staff into the organisation.
‘We have an 18 year old and a 47 year old undertaking Apprenticeships – isn’t that amazing? Both bring different skills and aptitudes, confidence and work styles.’
Now in its 14th year, the National Apprenticeship Awards are run by the National Apprenticeship Service and were sponsored by Centrica.
The awards praise businesses that ‘grow their talent with apprenticeships’, apprenticeships that have positively contributed to their workplace and those who champion apprenticeships.
Ms Keane told Management in Practice that apprenticeships could be a solution for those practices struggling with recruitment.
She said: ‘We believe that we must help the next generation of staff into the NHS and growing them in the “Alvanley Way” fits our ethos and culture. In addition, having 40% of our workforce undertaking an Apprenticeship Qualification means that lifelong learning is a normal activity for our staff.’
Dr Jaweeda Idoo, a GP at the Alvanley Family Practice said: ‘Dr Mark Gallagher and are passionate educators and trainers. As GP principals we have been educators of Foundation Doctors and Medical Students.
‘It was a natural progression for us to consider growing our own workforce. It has helped with retention and progression and gives us a team that are able to be agile enough to deal with the pressures on primary care’.
