As a young 17 year old setting out on my journey to (hopefully) becoming a Dr, I wanted to find ways to better understand the experience of both patients and staff, and find a way to contribute to my local hospital.

We began our contribution to the Youth Ambassador Group at the beginning of October. Our group were tasked with rebranding the ‘Childrens’ Centre’. Covid has obviously impacted all our lives so  instead of a visit we were shown a presentation on what the centre looked like and how it functioned, alongside examples of the new designs for the uniforms of the health care teams by younger children such as the giraffe design.

We were asked how we, as an older group, could feel included in the centre. Using words such as ‘youth’ instead of child or children was a popular idea as it appeals to the older age range especially. We reviewed different themes for the design of various wards, such as space, sports and countries of the world. Personally, as a younger person, the idea of Space was especially cool, and I was able to contribute to the idea by adding lots of information on the various planets in our solar system.

The first meeting was a joy to be part of and I look forward to taking part in the next meeting at the end of October. We will meet an A&E consultant and be walked through a day in their life, before continuing our work in the Childrens’ Centre and embarking on our next project.

I’m looking forward to seeing the next stage, and all the discussions and designs coming to fruition”.