This week, Safaraz is in conversation with Lucy Hunte, the National Program Manager for Apprenticeships at NHS England. Safaraz and Lucy discusses her career journey working in apprenticeships, first at colleges and then moving to her current role at NHS England.

She talks about how NHS England has embraced apprenticeships, growing from under 1,000 apprentices when she started in 2016 to over 150,000 now. Lucy discusses the challenges and opportunities of implementing apprenticeship programs within such a large organization like the NHS.

Key topics highlighted include: increasing apprenticeship uptake across NHS trusts, utilizing the apprenticeship levy, developing health-specific apprenticeship standards, ensuring quality provision, challenges around maths and English requirements, and Lucy's passion for bringing back the business administration apprenticeship standard. Lucy also shares advice for government and the apprenticeship sector more broadly. She advocates for consistency, simplicity and putting learners first when developing policies and standards.