From hospital volunteer to critical-care colleague: Mehtap’s year of progress

Almost a year after moving from volunteer to paid member of staff, Hartlepool’s Mehtap Durmus can look back on a change that was several years in the making.

Mehtap began by volunteering on ward 40 at the University Hospital of North Tees and welcoming patients in the main outpatient department at the University Hospital of Hartlepool. The work helped her understand the NHS from the inside while she rebuilt the confidence needed to return to a healthcare career.

Experience before opportunity

In October 2025, she secured a clinical support role in critical care at North Tees. She has since progressed to healthcare assistant, learning new skills on the unit and beginning to think about a longer-term route into nursing or midwifery.

Her path is particularly relevant to people who trained abroad before coming to the UK. Qualifications and experience do not always transfer neatly into a new health system. Language, unfamiliar recruitment processes and time spent away from clinical work can all become barriers, even when somebody has spent years caring for others.

Mehtap says volunteering gave her a way through that gap. She could observe how a ward operates, speak with patients, learn from staff and demonstrate that she was comfortable in a hospital environment. Just as importantly, the role gave her a sense of belonging before a paid vacancy arrived.

The move into critical care brought a new level of responsibility. Mehtap said the work has increased her confidence and that she is learning every day. She also credits her husband and daughters with providing the support that made the transition possible.

A first step, not a guaranteed shortcut

Volunteering is not a promise of employment, and unpaid work should never be presented as the only route into the NHS. For Mehtap, though, it served a clear purpose: current experience, local references and a realistic view of the job she wanted to do.

Her message to other internationally qualified healthcare workers is to keep their ambitions in sight. A voluntary role can help with confidence and language, while giving someone the chance to contribute to patient care in a supervised setting and become familiar with the organisation.

University Hospitals Tees recruits volunteers for a range of roles, but applicants still need to follow the trust’s checks, training and placement process. Anyone interested in a clinical career should also use the trust’s formal vacancy pages and check the registration or qualification requirements for the profession they want to enter.

Mehtap’s earlier roles on ward 40 at North Tees and as an outpatient welcomer in Hartlepool gave her a view of both bedside care and the first moments of a hospital visit. That range helped her learn local routines while contributing immediately. Her overseas qualification and interest in nursing or midwifery now give the trust a chance to retain that growing experience.

Mehtap’s story is encouraging precisely because it is not a sudden transformation. It is a sequence of patient steps: showing up as a volunteer, learning the system, applying for a role and continuing to develop once she got it. A year into paid work, she is no longer trying to find her way back into healthcare. She is deciding where within it she wants to go next.