Using your caring skills
This page is for you if you'd like to use your caring skills as a way into the health sector.
There are links to further information about transferable skills and jobs that use caring skills and the wide range of settings where you may be able to work.
Perhaps you have raised a family or you have experience of caring for a friend or relative. These are valuable transferable skills.
As well as caring experience you may have other skills, interests or experiences you could turn into a job or you may have previous work experience.
Find out more about transferable skills to identify your skills and how they can be used in healthcare.
What opportunities are there?
There's a wide range of roles in healthcare where care skills are of primary importance, from support worker or healthcare assistant roles to positions where you need further qualifications and skills. See the explore roles section of this website.
There are entry points, for people at all levels and ages, from those with few qualifications to the highly qualified.
In today’s health system there's an increasingly wider range of roles and settings where you may be able to use your care skills.
Find out more about each of these options below:
- a community-based role
- the independent and charity sectors
- local authority healthcare partnerships
- voluntary work
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Community-based roles
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As more and more healthcare is being delivered in patients' homes, jobs that had previously been done in a hospital setting are now being done in the community. In the NHS a community based role has similar benefits and career development opportunities as a hospital based one.
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Independent and charity sectors
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An increasing proportion of NHS healthcare is now provided by the independent sector, charities and social partnerships. Healthcare professionals can work for these providers, with or without NHS experience.
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Local authority healthcare partnerships
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Children’s services, learning disabilities and social care, among others, are increasingly delivered through partnerships between the NHS and a local authority. For example, you can be employed by local government and deliver healthcare.
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Voluntary work
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If you want to make a difference to patients without the commitment of a job, you could consider voluntary work. With experience and confidence you may then wish in the future to apply for a paid post.
If making a difference, putting people first, respecting individual differences, providing quality of care and improving lives is important to you, this could be the right move for you.
