Award Winning Apprentice - MK College

Award Winning Apprentice

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The nominations are in for Milton Keynes University Hospital Apprentice of the Year Awards 2020, and the winner is… Cara Crotty, Communications Apprentice!

Cara tells us, ”I am so thankful to be MKUH’s apprentice of the year! My apprenticeship has benefited me in so many ways – it has given me fantastic experience in the working world and has given me a real chance to put my skills into practice and develop myself as a person both professionally and personally.

My team are so supportive and have really helped me over the course of my apprenticeship; helping me to progress in my role, but also to gain more confidence and life skills.”

Cara completed her Business Admin Level 3 Apprenticeship with Milton Keynes College in January 2021, achieving distinctions in all areas! We asked Cara to tell us a little bit more about her apprenticeship:

“My apprenticeship explored all aspects of comms, including internal comms: weekly CEO newsletters, informative videos and video editing, and intranet content posters. The external comms: all social media, website content, patient information leaflets, patient information videos, press releases, and external media opportunities such as local news shows and events.

We hold a staff engagement event every year called Event in the Tent, which in 2020 had to go virtual due to the pandemic. The virtual event became the project for my apprenticeship, this included finding and booking speakers, planning talks, running presentations and more. As part of the team, I was also involved in running the Annual Staff Awards and the Long Service Awards.”

Milton Keynes University Hospital employs more than 4,000 staff and each year the hospital sees and treats appropriately 400,000 patients. Cara is responsible for the management of the Trust’s social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter & Instagram.

Cara tells us, “This includes creating content, posting and scheduling content and replying to public messages. I also collate all comments and feedback, good and bad, to share with other teams. I create the CEO weekly message for all staff at the hospital to share important information and updates, including a weekly video message from our CEO. Another thing I am responsible for is video editing, whether that be patient information, such as videos to watch before surgery and career insight videos, or internal updates.

I am also responsible for live events at MKUH. We hold internal live Q&A sessions with the CEO and other members of the Exec team, which is attended by hundreds of staff members. We also hold other live events, such as talks about anxiety and mental health by inspirational speakers, where I recently arranged for Nick Elston to talk at one of these events.”

Apprenticeship Manager at MKUH, Hannah Barnett says, “Cara has been a fantastic apprentice and received multiple nominations for this award, she has helped raise the profile of apprenticeships at the Trust and been such a positive representation. Now she has completed her apprenticeship and received a distinction in all aspects, we are very privileged and pleased she will be staying on with us at the Trust in a permanent role.”

If an apprenticeship like Cara’s sounds right up your street take a look here for more information.