Rachel Andrew is a member of the Workforce Panel of the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health & Social Care Workforce, King's College London.

Who am I? A learning and development specialist – who has worked in the NHS, social care and the independent sector for my whole career. I currently work for a medium sized acute and community Trust in the Midlands where I live – having moved from my seaside roots in Yorkshire a couple of decades ago. My work has always been about supporting and developing people – and providing ways to improve working conditions and the experience of work. In my current role, I facilitate training, develop schemes to support people into work and support cultural improvement works across my organisation. This means I get to work on lots of projects – which give me variety and the opportunity to learn from doing too. Partnership working is really important to what I do and this means I’m also working on projects across a broader system and with colleagues in similar roles across the UK. I’m particularly interested in the experience of work, apprenticeships and work experience and career development and progression.

What do I bring?: Connection with others – being able to share and connect good practice to application; Emerging interest in research – appetite to learn, absorb, be part of the process; Critical thinking and able to see things from different lenses to ask questions and challenge thinking – in a compassionate and constructive way; Values based and my commitment to diversity and inclusion is hard-wired; Feedback skills – giving constructive feedback.