NAW '24

The Employer's View

Barton Surgery

Jane Leballuer, Office Manager at Barton Surgery in Dawlish, has had three apprentices complete their Level 3 Business Administrator apprenticeships, and a fourth in currently underway. All three of the successful apprentices now have full time roles within the surgery.

Swatpro's apprenticeship tutor, Amy Fenegan, asked Jane what made her decide on apprenticeships as a way of training new staff. Jane commented that they were looking for young enthusiastic staff to train in surgery specific administration and were recommended to Swatpro by another practice who had an apprentice at the time.

She went on to add that the she felt that there were massive benefits to employers who utilised apprenticeships. Apprentices are keen and get a good training programme from the provider which gives them a background knowledge of administation and we can then apply the work-based learning with surgery tasks, to round out the experience, highlighting that apprenticeships provide the employer and the apprentice with the best of both worlds, with the apprentice able to study and earn at the same time. We also get the chance to train our apprentices in the way that suits the practice, and so by the time they finish their apprenticeship that are fully rounded members of staff with a great level of experience, she added.

Amy asked Jane about any challenges that she may have faced during these apprenticeships... and we are happy to report that she responded there had been nothing challenging because support has been great! It's certainly one of the things that Swatpro prides itself on... supporting employers throughout the journey from the initial setting up on the Government's Apprenticeship Service and uploading vacancies to facilitating the End Point Assessment. We work with employers to ensure that the apprentice's progression is planned... off-job-training has been worked in with a study day pre-planned, as the apprentice progresses, they gain more responsibility within their roles which works well for us as an employer, Jane added.

Asked whether she would recommend apprenticeships to other employers, she responded... Absolutely 100%! The benefits are huge, we have been able to traing our apprentices in a way that suits us as a company, in collaboration with Swatpro, and ultimately we have gained some very valuable staff. We have not had a bad experience.

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