The early career pathways of a group of health and social care graduates

Description/Abstract

Background
The make-up of the health and social care workforce is influenced by the career decisions and pathways taken by professionals within that workforce. This poster reports the pilot phase of a longitudinal study exploring the early career pathways of health and social care professionals. The pilot study group comprised a sample of recent graduates from 10 different programmes taught at the University of Southampton and the University of Portsmouth.

Methods
Contact details were provided by a group of health and social care students during their final year of study: either 2006 or 2007. In autumn 2008, a random sample of 200 of these students, who had now graduated, was selected. The selected graduates were then sent a questionnaire survey. A reminder letter and second questionnaire were sent to those from whom no reply had been received after two weeks. The survey results were analysed using Excel and SPSS.

Results
Questionnaires were returned from graduates in 10 professions. All the respondents were currently in paid employment and most were working in the profession for which they had graduated. Over half had had at least one other job since graduating. The majority of respondents planned to continue working in their current profession, around a third expected to stay in their current job for less than a year.

Implications
Results from this study will highlight the career pathways taken by health and social care graduates and will enhance understanding of their career patterns, thus informing workforce planning for service providers.