Healthcare Science Week

What is Healthcare Science Week?

Healthcare Science Week takes place every year in March

Healthcare Science Week is an annual week-long programme designed to promote and celebrate the amazing work of Healthcare Science professionals. The aim is to raise awareness of the wide range of careers and roles within Healthcare Science, highlighting the difference they all make to patients' lives.

It gives each one of us the chance to tell the public and other health professionals how science and technology is vital in modern patient care and changes lives for the better. It’s also an invaluable opportunity for existing Healthcare Science staff to inspire the next generation by promoting the new career structures in local schools and colleges. 

 

How Can You Get Involved?

Getting involved in Healthcare Science Week is easy, and you can participate in many ways. Your NHS Board or department could have a stand in a public area or the hospital’s foyer, give a presentation in a school or college, invite school and college students into one of the healthcare science departments, or get involved in STEM events during the campaign week. Lots of ideas for activities and resources are available on the STEM Scotland website.

Ideas for Virtual and Social Media Engagement

Healthcare Science Week 2024 placard 

Tell your own story about why you love working in Healthcare Science. Please take photos of yourself and your colleagues with the placard and share them on social media using the hashtag #HCSWeekScot2024

Download the Healthcare Science Week placard (PDF) here

Share or Create videos

There are lots of career videos about Healthcare Science published by:
• various professional bodies
• NHS Scotland Careers website

Create a 30-second video sharing your experience working in
healthcare,’ A Day in the life of…’ and send it to us at
HCS@nes.scot.nhs.uk.

We’ll share these videos throughout the week on our social media @hcsnes using the hashtag#HCSWeekScot2024

Some ideas to include in your clip:
• a quick introduction to what you do
• the most exciting thing about your job

Ideas for In-person events

Organise an event

A rewarding way to engage with the public, our service users, and our next generation of healthcare Scientists is to organise an information event. Host a stand in a public area or the hospital foyer.

Some examples:

• host a stand in a public area or the hospital foyer
• give a presentation, in person or virtually, to a school, college, university, science society or club, or even your trust board
• invite school and college students for a tour of your workplace or run a workshop, if permitted
• contact your healthcare science lead at your NHS Board to help promote or to get involved with any organised events

 

Become a STEM ambassador

STEM Scotland has many NHS healthcare science ambassadors signed up. Becoming a healthcare science STEM ambassador is great fun, rewarding, and excellent for personal development and professional networking. 

• Lots of ideas for activities and resources available on STEM Scotland website. There is also information about how you can get signed up as a STEM ambassador.

We’d love to hear from you!

If you are getting involved with promotions during Healthcare Science Week, we'd love to hear from you and your team. Send an email to HCS@nes.scot.nhs.uk, and we'll help promote your event and increase engagement,

Tag us in your social media @hcsnes. Remember to use the hashtag #HCSWeekScot2024

Resources to help

We have the following resources available:

• Healthcare Science career leaflet available as PDFs for printing (see documents below)
• Healthcare Science Week 2024 placard here
• an advert for sharing and promoting Healthcare Science Week 2024
• career profiles on the NHS Scotland Careers website
• a template for a PowerPoint presentation about healthcare science careers that you can use.  Download a Healthcare Science Careers overview Powerpoint PDF presentation for your event here 

For your email signature, you can add this image here

If you are a member of a professional body for your speciality, they may
have careers and free promotional materials to request.

 

Documents and related links

• NHS Scotland Careers Clinical Physiology Leaflet
• NHS Scotland Careers Life Sciences Leaflet
• NHS Scotland Careers Physical Sciences Leaflet
• Promotional Overview Of Healthcare Science
• #Hcsweekscot2024 Placard
• Hcsweekemailsignature

Scottish Governments’ Chief Scientific Officer’s Awards 2024 (Thursday 14th March)

     

Healthcare Scientists are at the forefront of healthcare within Scotland. We have seen our workforce demonstrate significant scientific and leadership skills enabling them to deliver their services in new and innovative ways whilst still maintaining high quality. These awards celebrate those skills and expertise and recognise innovation and transformation within our services, leadership within our workforce, and high quality education and service delivery. It also provides a platform to share best practice throughout our profession.

The Award Categories

• Healthcare Scientist of the Year
• Rising Star
• Healthcare Science Support Worker of the Year
• Excellence in Workforce Collaboration
• Improvement in Action
• Inspiring the Future Workforce
• Transforming Service Delivery

The winners will be announced at an online event to be held on Thursday 14th March (13:00-14:30).

To register to attend the virtual awards event, please visit this link: https://forms.office.com/e/0BgJmgExr2.

If you have any questions or issues, please email: officeofthechiefscientificofficer@gov.scot.