Work Experience Placements

County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust (CDDFT) provides Work Experience placements for students who are in full-time education and are between the ages of 15 - 18 years old.

CDDFT is committed to supporting fulfilling, informative and structured 5 day work experience opportunities for young people within the Trust's catchment area of County Durham.

We recognise that Work Experience placements offer a chance for students to gain insight and knowledge that can inform the decisions they make about their future studies and career choices.

Placements are provided in all appropriate clinical and non-clinical areas to provide a broad range of work based placement opportunities.

The Trust recognises the value of providing placements to help individual students to inform their choice of career pathway and to promote links between CDDFT, local schools and colleges and the community. We also recognise the need to manage this in a way that both supports the individual student and ensures patient safety and integrity are also maintained.

Important Information

• Work experience requests are managed through the Learning and Development administration team, who receive many requests for placements. Because of this it will take time for the team to process your application, so please be patient.
• Only work experience placements which have been submitted through the online application form, will be considered.
• It takes approximately 10 weeks to process each Work Experience Application. We are therefore unable to accept applications that are submitted less than 10 weeks before the proposed start date of the placement.

Also, placement applications cannot be made by:

• Contacting individual members of CDDFT staff.
• Contacting individual wards or departments within the Trust.
• Submitting requests by email, letter, CV, over the phone or in person.

The CDDFT work experience programme is open to:

• Students who are aged between 15 to 18 years old.
• Students who are in full-time education or training.
• Where applicable, students with special educational needs (SEN) aged from 15 up to 21 years old, can apply for a work experience placement with CDDFT.

Please note: Work Experience Placements at CDDFT:

• Are not open to students who are over 18 years old.
• Are not open to University students.
• Are not open to persons who are over 18 years old, who are looking for work place experience prior to a change of career.

Click on the links at the side for further information and to apply for a work experience placement.

If you have any other queries regarding work experience at the Trust or the application process, please email:

cdda-tr.workexperience@nhs.net