An occupational therapist has celebrated her 25 years with the NHS and her 'Apprentice of the Year' award.
Andrea Hitchcock, who works for the North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust, qualified in October 2024 after a four-year learning journey around her job during Covid.
Andrea, from Peterborough, enrolled on the Assistant Practitioner in Health Level 5 degree to help develop her role.
This involved re-sitting her maths and English qualifications and undertaking assignments, essays, and hospital placements.
"I am proud to have won as it hasn’t been an easy ride combing working and learning – alongside a number of additional challenges along the way, not least the pandemic, as well as being the oldest student on the course.
"Getting to grips with unfamiliar aspects of technology presented its own challenges, and there wasn’t a week that went by that I didn’t want to quit.
"However, I am so proud of my achievement, and I did it with the support of friends, family and colleagues."
Andrea began her career at the Freemans Distribution Centre in Peterborough, then joined the bank and worked evenings and weekends as a healthcare assistant at Peterborough District Hospital.
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Andrea left Freemans in 2000 to take up a full-time post as a renal care assistant on the dialysis unit moving into Therapy services seven years later.
Since qualifying, Andrea has further developed her OT role and now works within the Front Door Team at Peterborough City Hospital’s Emergency Department.
This involves working closely with the MDT consisting of frailty nurses, transfer of care and discharges team – all striving towards same day patient discharge avoiding admissions and supporting patients to live in their own home – in addition to also supporting other student apprentices to progress through the Trust.
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