Health and Social Care

The health and care sector includes health service jobs delivered by organisations such as the NHS and private medical centres and the social care sector, as well as bio-technology and pharmaceutical industries which are concerned with the development and manufacture of drugs and ways of making diagnoses.

Health & Social Care is a major source of employment across a range of occupations, many of which re highly skilled. The sector is facing persistent serious skills and recruitment challenges Within the NHS, the main skills shortages were reported in pharmacy, psychological sciences and respiratory physiology, together with medical radiographers and specialist nurses working in neonatal intensive care units.

Workers within GM's health and care industries are highly qualified, with a significantly higher proportion of the workforce being qualified to Level 4.

Occupations that the sector struggles to recruit for include consultants with certain specialties, pharmacists, dental practitioners, specialist nurses and therapists.

Greater Manchester’s The Christie Hospital is the largest single site cancer treatment and research centre in Europe! Corridor Manchester is home to the UK's multimillion pound 'smart city' Internet of things demonstrator, CityVerve

Example jobs available in this sector

Job Description

Anatomical pathology technicians help pathologists carry out post-mortems in mortuaries. Other duties include making sure instruments are clean, sterile and ready for use, receiving bodies into the mortuary, placing the deceased into cold storage units, keeping accurate records. Tracking property and samples of the deceased. During a post-mortem, you’ll be: taking tissue samples, weighing organs as they’re removed from a body, taking samples for lab analysis, recording the findings of a post-mortem exam, helping to reconstruct and clean the body ready for storage or release to an undertaker.

Salary Range

£18,813 - £23,761

Working environment

You are most likely to work at a mortuary. The role can be emotionally and physically demanding and you are expected to wear protective clothing.

Hours

Minimum 35 hrs a week

Opportunities

39 to 41 a week, including evenings / weekends / bank holidays at short notice e) Opportunities – With experience and relevant qualifications, you could train other health professionals and move into more advanced technical work or management.

Job Description

Social workers help to protect vulnerable children and adults from harm or abuse, and support people to live independently. They do this through having a caseload of clients who they provide information and counselling to, put together support plans and support clients' safety and take appropriate action to protect them when necessary. Social workers work closely with education, local authorities, health professionals and other agencies.

Salary Range

£24,000 - £40,000

Working environment

Being a social worker can be very emotionally demanding. You could work in a variety of settings from an office, in an NHS or private hospital, at an adult care home, at a children's care home or in the community.

Hours

Varied, minimum of 37-40 hours a week, you could work evenings / weekends / bank holidays on a rota

Opportunities

With experience, social workers may progress into become trainers or mentors, move into management, lead others, or go into education and research in the field.

Job Description

General practitioners (GPs) are doctors who provide medical services to people in their local community. GPs speak to patients face to face, on the phone or online to diagnose patients' symptoms, they prescribe medications and recommend or advise on treatments. Alongside giving general medical advice, GPs can also perform minor surgery. GPs work with other professionals to find the best course of treatment or support for their patient, this might include hospitals, social workers, nurses and specialist consultants.

Salary Range

£37,191 - £87,003

Working environment

You could work at a GP practice, at a health centre or at a client's home. Your working environment may be emotionally demanding at times.

Hours

45-50 a week, including evenings / weekends / bank holidays

Opportunities

GPs can move into medical work in hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, specialise in a particular industry as sport, business or the military. They can go into education, teaching or research, or lead a practice.

Job Description

Working quickly and calmly, call handlers take essential details about the patient's condition and location, logging the information onto a computer system. The information is then passed to an emergency medical dispatcher who makes decisions about how best to handle the situation. They might deal with life-or-death emergencies such as a major incident, a heart attack or drug overdose, or be faced with a situation such as a child with a suspected broken leg.

In extreme cases, they may have to talk a member of the public through an emergency procedure, such as clearing an obstruction from someone's airway. Or they might need to persuade someone they should visit their GP or emergency department rather than sending an emergency vehicle to them.

Salary Range

Varied

Working environment

Usually based in a contact centre. This role can be very emotionally demanding and distressing but also extremely rewarding.

Hours

37.5 a week, these are on a shift pattern. Shifts cover 24 hours a day, 7 days a week throughout the year, this includes evenings, nights, early starts, weekends and bank holidays.

Opportunities

The skills and experience you build as a finance officer could enable you to work in many different industries. With experience, finance officers could train to become an accountant or move up to a senior officer role or finance manager.

Job Description

District or community nurses mainly visit patients at home. They can be assisted by nursing auxiliaries who may visit to assist with tasks which need two workers. Their role things such as: Support for patient and carer after hospital discharge, assist in coordinating care needs and ensuring equality of health care for vulnerable people.

Salary Range

£23,213- £30,178

Working environment

You could work in a variety of different environments such as clinics and health centres, residential accommodation and patients’ homes.

Hours

Minimum 37 hours usually in shifts.

Opportunities

Some nurses feel so at home in a community nurse job that they apply there as a newly qualified nurse. Whichever you choose, there are so many different nursing specialities to explore and career paths to choose from, you will never run out of options.

What to expect from this sector in the next 10 years

With test tube babies, hip replacement surgery and bionic eye implants all being pioneered in Greater Manchester you can expect big things for the future. GM is the only city in the UK to have a devolved £6billion health and social care budget.

Health and social care is at the cutting edge of technological and digital advancement. If you want to work in this sector that Greater Manchester has it all. Did you know that 70% of the UK’s clinical lab scientists are trained in Manchester!