My Industrial Placement

My name is Waleed Backler and I am a final year Mathematics student at the University of Greenwich. As part of my ‘sandwich degree’, I recently undertook a one-year industry placement with the Department of Health and NHS England in Leeds, UK. The main aim of NHS England is to improve the health outcomes for people in England by delivering high quality care for all, now and for future generations. I worked in the Patients and Information Directorate in the Analytical Services Team which deals primarily with data generated by patient opinion, capturing ‘what patients think and feel’ about the care they receive.

My work

My role was to analyse survey and other datasets in order to gain information and insight on patient experience and outcomes across a variety of clinical services. I used statistical packages such as SPSS to undertake complex multivariate analysis to investigate relationships between variables within and between our core datasets. I frequently wrote statistical bulletins to report my findings to ministers who used it to help determine policy decisions.

I specified and created tools based on user requirements which allow our customers to understand trends in the data more easily, and to identify outlying results (both positive and negative). Some of these tools were published on the NHS England website (for example, www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/qual-clin-lead/place/) as public-facing free to use resources for anyone interested in the data. The tools that I have developed have also been distributed to co-workers from within and outside the organisation, and have become a valuable resource for colleagues working in the area of patient experience and outcomes.

I also witnessed with fascination the use of Operational Research in several other Analytical teams. This included the creation of models to reduce inpatient waiting times whilst the Finance team created a Monte Carlo simulation wrapper for models which predicted expenditure.

Skills Development

The placement has given me strong skills in problem-solving, managing my time effectively and writing succinctly, in addition to advancing my knowledge of statistical analysis.

I was given the opportunity to develop my presentation skills. At the end of the placement, I presented some of the work I did to more than a hundred analysts. I have learnt to prioritise between multiple tasks because unlike university where you have a set timetable,
unexpected work of high priority can emerge at any time when working in NHS England. I’ve also developed my understanding of how to communicate complex information to non-technical audiences. I am delighted to have developed this skill because many of our customers and very senior managers do not fully understand mathematical and statistical terms. As a result of my usefulness to the team I have been asked to stay on part-time during my final year of university.

There were numerous development opportunities in NHS England. I attended a funded Visual Basic for Applications course with other colleagues which was really helpful as we used our newly found programming knowledge to speed up work processes. I also had the opportunity to take an active part in the latest Patient-Led Assessments of the Care Environment (PLACE) at Leeds General Infirmary. This allowed me to interact with patients and front-line staff to see the bigger picture and understand the significance behind all the work that analysts do. I now recognise that one small piece of analytical work can affect policy decisions, which in turn can affect the level of care that patients receive.

Conclusion

I enjoyed my placement for many reasons including the fact that I have been able to work in many different areas of patient experience. For example, one day I was working on the Inpatient survey while the next, I was working on patient’s personal health budgets. I think this has improved my skills even more as I have become more flexible when taking on tasks which are not similar in any way.

Finally, I have enjoyed working in the NHS England / Department of Health especially since all members of my team were focused and dedicated to their work. This experience will certainly benefit me for the rest of my degree and future employment. I would wholly recommend the Department of Health/NHS England to anyone looking for an interesting and rewarding placement full of opportunities and diversity.