Work experience

While working in accordance with NHS England’s Widening Participation and Talent for Care strategies, Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, is delighted to be able to support anyone who has the potential to flourish in the NHS, by offering an insight into a variety of the many careers available.

We have a long established work experience programme that is primarily aimed at students in school years 11-13; however you are very welcome to get in touch if you are considering a career change later in life.

All clinical placements are purely observational (no hands-on tasks) and are fully supervised.

Placements run for 5 days, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays). No weekend exposure is permitted.

Please be aware that students must be at least 16 years of age to take part and that further age restrictions are imposed on certain departments.

The majority of placements we host are for those looking to apply to medical school, but If you aren’t an aspiring medic; we have exciting opportunities for everyone. There are hundreds of roles in the NHS.

Current situation

We are really excited by the amount of interest our local communities have shown in a potential NHS career. We have received thousands of enquiries and have hosted over 500 work experience students in 2024 so far.

We work according to the academic year and are currently only allocating places up until the end of August 2025. Please note that all medical places during local school holidays are now full, only a few term time places remain. We will temporarily close this aspect of the programme to new requests once this period is filled. Placement dates for the 2025-2026 academic year will be open to new applications once we have confirmation of availability. We anticipate that this will be around May 2025.

We are currently accepting new requests.

Please contact us using the expression of interest link below. Our team will then follow up with the most appropriate application form according to your interests. MS FORMS LINK https://forms.office.com/e/ZYR0Rb5NUa

Application forms will be processed in order of submission and so any cancelled places that may become available will also be offered in this order.

You may also wish to consider volunteering. More information can be found here: https://www.epsom-sthelier.nhs.uk/volunteer

Useful links for students

· Step into the NHS (opens in a new window)

Student friendly advice and guidance on the 350 different roles within the NHS with interactive quizzes, real-life stories and videos aimed at students taking their first steps in a career in the NHS

· NHS health careers (opens in a new window)

Informative guidance about planning a career in the NHS

· Medical Schools Council (opens in a new window)

Click here for guidance from MSC on work experience before applying to Medical School.