Spotlight on a Registered Nurse Degree Apprentice
To continue on with celebrating National Apprenticeship Week, we spoke with Adult Nurse Apprentice, Aji Ndimbalan to capture her incredible apprenticeship journey and how she is achieving her dream of becoming a Registered Nurse.
Hello, my name is Aji Ndimbalan, and I am delighted to share my Adult Nurse Apprenticeship journey in collaboration with Birmingham Community Healthcare (BCHC) and Birmingham City University (BCU).
I joined BCHC in 2019 as a Bank administrator after giving birth to my son in 2018 and simultaneously completing my master’s in education at BCU and wanted to do something flexible.
During the Covid pandemic, there was an advertised post for a bladder and bowel Assistant Practitioner and with my previous experience in health and social care and having completed the foundation degree Level 5 in Health and Social Care many years ago, I decided to apply to secure a permanent role and was fortunate to get the job.
I joined the bladder and bowel service in September 2020 and worked both within the community and clinic settings completing continence assessments, reassessments, teaching patients’ intermittent self-catheterisations, pelvic floor exercises and more. I thoroughly enjoyed this role, and the Trust funded a stand-alone degree module in continence care at King’s College London which I completed and passed. This motivated my interest in Nursing, and with the support from the best manager, Lesley Longthorn who values staff progression and empowers her staff for development, I applied for the Registered Nurse Degree Apprenticeship (RNDA) and passed the apprenticeship interview which was conducted by both the Trust and BCU and was lucky to be given the opportunity to start the following September.
Following this, I requested a secondment to district nursing to gain more clinical exposure during the course and it has equipped me with advanced clinical skills such as complex wound care, pressure area care, male, female and supra pubic catheters, blood glucose monitoring and administering insulin, B12’s and Clexane’s, etc. This has allowed me to provide high quality patient care and ultimately enhancing overall patient experience, which gives me fulfilment.
I am thoroughly enjoying the course and have passed all my assessments and do support my personal tutor with her other students by providing them assignment support sessions and was recently awarded a Nursing Star Certificate by the University.I am now in my third year looking forward to completing my course and retuning back to the bladder and bowel service as a qualified Band 5 registered nurse.
I encourage anyone considering Nursing to apply for an apprenticeship as the rewards are endless. It is flexible with a combination of university attendance, placement and work-based hours. Support is also available from the apprenticeship team within the Trust as well as BCU. I appreciate you reading about my experience as an apprentice, and I hope it encourages you to apply.
Do you want to kickstart or upskill your career like Aji?