A virtual event marked the launch of the Barking and Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge (BHR) Health and Care Academy.

The new training initiative aims to offer rewarding careers for residents in our three boroughs.

Chief Nurse Kathryn Halford, who is also the BHR Academy’s SRO, spoke at the launch event highlighting what it can offer: “The academy enables us to look at what the workforce looks like for the future, and how we, as a health economy, can look at training and providing that workforce going forward.

“We need to look at our local population and we need to ask, ‘do they have the right skill sets, do they want to work in this environment?’

“We need to market health and social care a lot more, people often think if you work in a hospital, you’re a nurse or a doctor – but that’s not the case and we need to market those opportunities to people.”

With a mix of online and face to face training, the academy will improve recruitment and retention and build human resource management and leadership capability and capacity.  

Kathryn added: “We’ll work with system partners to ensure these opportunities are available to all – for people at any point in their life.

“This is a really exciting time for our boroughs, at a period of high unemployment we have an opportunity to really galvanise people and share the opportunities available to them.”

You can watch the full recording of the launch event below: