As a patient I’d seen a lot that was inspiring in the NHS, as well as areas that had room for improvement. That experience, combined with the quality of the programme and the opportunity to complete a Masters, made the graduate scheme an attractive option for me.

I didn’t really have much idea of what it would be like working for the NHS. There are so many organisations making up the NHS, all made up of different types of people, doing different things. There’s a lot of interaction going on between a huge variety of professionals, all with differing opinions and interests, which adds an important extra element to the decision-making process.

The one thing you can be certain of is that you’ll experience something new every day, whether that’s carrying out a new piece of work, having a meeting with new people or dealing with a crisis. As well as making things interesting, this also means you’re always learning new things and finding new areas you might be interested to work in.

My last role was running a stakeholder engagement project within a £90 million new hospital project at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. That involved running focus groups with inpatients, carrying out surveys of outpatients, presenting my findings to Foundation Trust members at the AGM and writing the communications strategy whilst the hospital is being built.

As well as being able to gain an academic qualification, the scheme offers lots of opportunities to develop your professional and leadership skills, from giving presentations to reporting to executives. There are also a large number of optional courses you can attend to develop specific skills such as budget control and writing business cases.

The changes taking place in the NHS are going to make the next few years very challenging, but they will also create a lot of opportunity. I’m planning on staying with the NHS and I would definitely encourage graduates to join the scheme – there’s a reason it’s one of the top five in the country. As well as the quality of the placements, the opportunities for personal development and the academic qualifications, you’re experiencing constant challenge and working with 1.4 million employees from different professions in an organisation with a budget of £100bn. As well as this, the ultimate outcome isn’t just a customer, it’s a patient.

Helping people is my big passion in life, so the first reason I joined the NHS was because I felt it offered the only graduate management scheme which would let me make a real difference to the most vulnerable in society. The second was the brilliant rewards, career prospects and education offered.

I have to say that working here has been exactly what I expected: hard work, often frustrating and sometimes political, but ultimately incredibly rewarding. The sense of achievement you get knowing you’ve done something to improve patient care is amazing.

I’m based in the East of England region, which is fascinating because it’s so diverse, with affluent and deprived areas sitting side-by-side. It’s also right at the forefront of innovation and development: for example, it was implementing government reforms even before they became policy.

My most recent placement involved designing, producing and implementing a Referral Management Toolkit for 16 GP practices in Huntingdonshire. Basically it’s a series of dashboards that GPs can use to compare referrals to outpatient departments not only against other practices, but also by specific GPs and by specialities. Hopefully this will promote peer discussion and review and eventually achieving savings.

No two days are ever the same in my job. Certain things do crop up on a regular basis though, such as meetings with clinical and non-clinical staff, analysing data and writing reports. My greatest achievement so far has been carrying out research and producing a board level report which identified over £500,000 of annual savings as well as staff morale boosting initiatives.

The education, coaching and leadership skills training I’ve received have helped me to become a professional manager who can handle difficult and stressful situations. They’ve also made me more politically aware – something that’s vital in the NHS.

Joining the NHS is a life-changing career move. You can gain a postgraduate qualification and develop a skill set that will make you stand out from the crowd –and at the same time you’ll be making a real difference.

After graduating, I joined the NHS as a junior physiotherapist, and then moved on to the post of senior musculoskeletal physiotherapist working in GP practices. I then became a Senior Physiotherapist back in the acute hospital setting in 2006.

I decided to join the NHS graduate management scheme as I had aspirations to move into leadership, and this provided the platform on which to make a fast transition from clinical work to managerial work. Currently, I’m working at North Middlesex Hospital as Service Manager for General Surgery.

I’m responsible for the day-to-day running of the general surgery service, including waiting list management for inpatients and outpatients, outpatient clinic running and ensuring we achieve the 18-week target. I also write business cases for this service, facilitating changes and improving efficiency.

Highlights include writing a business case for £300,000 for a fully integrated laparoscopic surgery suite for the hospital's new private finance initiative (PFI), which involved vast amounts of external and internal networking. I’ve also written a business case for a Rheumatology clinical nurse specialist, facilitated the development of a new vascular surgery pathway and organised a GP study day on vascular condition management. I’ve also ensured that the General Surgery Service continues to be compliant with the Department of Health’s 18-week referral to treatment (RTT) target.

I hope to complete my MSc after finishing the graduate scheme, and progress into a senior management role. Currently I am undecided if this will have an operational or strategic focus, and I am hoping the next 12 months will clarify this for me.

I wanted to work for the NHS for two reasons. Firstly, I’d worked in the private sector for three years, so I wanted a 'business' job working with a variety of people with lots of interesting opportunities and real work that would challenge me. Secondly, having also studied psychology at undergraduate and masters level I felt very passionate about wanting a career in healthcare. I researched different career options and graduate schemes and the NHS Graduate Management Training Scheme stood out as it seemed to fit my aspirations perfectly.

My current job on the scheme is quite unusual in the respect that I work as a project manager working in the 2012 London Olympic Games planning team. My role is very varied and has given me lots of new experiences and skills. I am solely managing a project on the training requirements for all staff for the Olympics. As this is a strategic role it is very different from my other operational placements, but it’s a really interesting role to be in as planning for an event on the scale of the Olympics is something we have never done before.

Before the management scheme I would have never thought I could manage a large budget, manage a team of people or deliver large projects but now I have the attitude that the bigger challenge the better!

I’m just about to start a new operational job which I am really excited about. At the moment this is my main focus but thinking in the long term I would ideally like to be in a senior position in the acute sector, but if something else comes along I could be doing something completely different! The great thing about the NHS is that there are so many new and exciting opportunities that come up.

I had never worked in the NHS before, but I completely believe in NHS values. In my current placement I have the title of Assistant Business Manager, responsible for performance and business of services within one borough with the Trust. This includes monitoring achievement of our target activity levels, and working with IT and finance to ensure the PCT reports and reference costs are correct. I also line manage the welfare office manager and the senior medical secretary.

One of the achievements I’m most proud of has been to open communication channels between IT and front-line clinicians. By translating what the ‘other side’ is saying into language that is understood more easily, and bringing the two sides together, we’ve been able to work together more effectively.

Another achievement I’m proud of is giving trainees a voice in the IHM (Institute of Healthcare Management) by joining the London Regional Council. Despite being members of the IHM, we don’t seem to interact much as a group, and I am working towards having greater trainee involvement, for example through finding mentors through IHM and developing a ‘student writer of the year award’.

I think as long as I’m challenged and continuously learning, I’ll have found what I’m looking for. So hopefully, in five years, I’ll be in a challenging role that keeps me on my toes, and teaches me something new every day.

I was a student nurse during my degree and the gastroenterology qualification involved achieving practical competence to be a nurse specialist in this field. Nursing is something that I had always wanted to do as a child.

Currently I am working within the Corporate Governance Department, which plays an integral role in the smooth running of the Trust’s business activities, providing advice and guidance as well as administrative support at all meetings of the Trust Board, Committees and Sub-Committees. I also undertake project work under the guidance of individual directors, which might involve reviewing an aspect of the service and making recommendations to the Executive Team on how this service may be improved upon.

In recent months, I’ve been focusing on the implementation of the Trust’s Public Health Strategy. I’ve met with lots of staff throughout the Trust to get a good understanding of the valuable work that they do, ensure that their achievements are acknowledged by the Board and identify local initiatives that could be expanded to the benefit of the population throughout the North West. I’ve also notably had a feature article published in Cancer Nursing Practice and was quite proud of becoming a Ward Sister as this is a role I aspired to upon qualification.

I thought getting on the scheme was an achievement in itself. But I’ve had a few more since then. I’ve now got the confidence to work with directors and present my work to them - something I would have thought impossible prior to joining the scheme.

Where do I see myself in the future? Working as an operational manager of an acute NHS trust. I want to make a difference in improving the experiences that our patients have by using both my clinical and general management experiences. As a nurse you can make a big difference to the lives of a few people, though I feel that management offers the opportunity to make a difference on a much larger scale.

I chose to do a degree in occupational therapy because I liked the idea of helping people to keep or gain their independence, and most of this kind of work is in the NHS. I have worked for other organisations, but working in the NHS has allowed me access to an unrivalled range of experience. I saw the scheme as an ideal way to further develop my career and as a good opportunity to challenge myself. I thought that my clinical background would be a good basis to start my management career.

I’m currently working as the Assistant Service Manager for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), which provides specialist Mental Health Services to children and young people up to the age of 18. I manage 34 admin and clerical staff and I’ve also been responsible for a number of other projects, including a £300,000 refurbishment and development of our inpatient unit to include a two-bed high-dependency annexe. Another piece of work I’ve been involved in has been the development of a tool that captures the activity (including outreach work) done by the inpatient unit, which was challenging as it required something compatible with the activity recording in the acute hospital which is part of the same trust.

I have arranged my flexi-placement to get some private-sector management experience. Having always worked for the NHS, I’d like to see what the differences are and what I can bring back to the NHS. For my final placement, I’m going to Western Cheshire PCT where I’m hoping to get some experience in commissioning. I haven’t yet decided what kind of management position I’m aiming for; I’m waiting to get more knowledge of working in a PCT before making that decision.

After doing a degree which revolved around healthcare, and briefly running a hotel in my gap year, I wanted to carry on helping people get better healthcare and use my business skills and this scheme was perfect for that. The NHS is traditionally know for its great work-life balance, staff support such as flexi time and good annual leave as well as a good pension. As such a huge organisation, there are such a variety of roles that you can do which for me made it exciting.

I am currently working as a project manager in public involvement and engagement for a Primary Care Trust (PCT) in the North West. I have spent the last six months developing and implementing a strategic action plan which will help strengthen the engagement function within the PCT and support staff to engage better with their patients. I am also a project support officer for the strategic commissioning plan which is the PCT’s major piece of work over the next year and I have just taken on the responsibility of running a project to review green travel within the PCT.

When I first found out about my role for this placement it all sounded pretty hard and I wasn’t sure I could do it. But nine months later I’m not only really enjoying it, I’m actually quite good at it! I’ve got the confidence I need to be a project manager, presenting in front of over 100 managers in the PCT about my project! I’ve also set up a working group with members from various departments which will look at best practice ways of engaging with our stakeholders, advised some senior managers on good project management techniques and produced a step-by-step toolkit for staff on engaging well with their patients.

I’d always wanted to work in the public sector and chose the NHS scheme over other public sector grad schemes for a few reasons. Firstly, I could choose the region where I wanted to work. Secondly, the remuneration offered was better than many others and I could also do a post-graduate qualification. The biggest attraction was the importance of the service – I didn’t want a job where I was working just to make someone else richer.

Right now, I’m a service delivery manager in an acute trust, working across general medicine and critical care. I’m involved in all aspects of managing a service, from writing business cases through recruiting staff to deputising for senior managers. My biggest achievement so far has been my involvement in a project to streamline stock ordering on a particular ward. Aimed at creating cost savings, the project created a leaner ordering system and also helped to improve service: this more efficient system has helped to release more time for staff to spend with patients. In terms of cost, to date we have already saved in excess of £125,000.

I was really thrown in at the deep end, and just gaining the skills needed to do this job well in such a short space of time has been a real achievement. However, once you have the skills and knowledge, you’ve also got the confidence to start working more independently.

I very much see my future being in the NHS, as there are so many opportunities.

I found out about the NHS Graduate Management Scheme through The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers; the NHS has consistently been placed in the top 10 and this is what initially attracted me to the scheme. When I found out more about the scheme, it was the opportunity to study for a post graduate diploma and post-graduate qualification that persuaded me to apply – along with the other forms of learning - experiential learning and action learning. I was also keen to take on responsibilities and to have my own role, which the scheme offers.

I am currently working as Associate General Manager for Medicine. I've already organised an event on diabetes for a range of stakeholders, which raised the issue of service redesign to the local Primary Care Trust, and I've produced a document to guide the future strategy for the diabetes and endocrinology specialties in the Trust. The work involved meeting with the consultants and other clinicians in the department to get an idea of what worked well in their service and what needed to be improved. The information I gathered will be used to guide new business cases for the coming year.

I’d like to achieve a merit in my Postgraduate Diploma in Health Management and Public Leadership, then find a management job and convert my diploma into a masters. I haven’t yet decided which part of the NHS I would like to work in, but I’ve enjoyed working in an acute trust and I’m looking forward to working at an advertising agency during my flexi-placement before my final placement at a primary care trust. My aim is to gain as much experience of the NHS as possible so that I have a wide range of options in the future.

I had worked at a few different hospitals before as a healthcare assistant in the university holidays and my interest in health issues attracted me to the NHS. I decided to join the management training scheme because it allowed me to work in an area of healthcare that I enjoyed and where I knew I could make a difference.

I mainly manage the day-to-day running of the Orthotics Department and its staff. I’m the budget holder for the department so I assist with financial management, and I’m heavily involved with the service improvement within the department and the more strategic issues. I’ve written the department’s business plan for the next few years and have carried out work around several future developments such as the introduction of GP direct access. Perhaps most impressively, I’ve reduced the waiting list from a total wait of 22 weeks down to 7 weeks.

The orthotic service and products are both out to tender at present. I had responsibility for producing the specifications for both and I am coordinating the process including evaluation of the tenders.

I have an interest in public health and want to gain experience in this field before ultimately deciding which area I would like to work in. In the next five years I hope to become a respected manager working towards a director level post.