Celebrating Treloar's Apprenticeships

National Apprenticeship Week (9 -15 February 2026)

Treloar College student Zoe, interviewed Laura and Emma to learn more about their roles and the impact that their apprenticeships have had on their careers and personal development goals.

Laura is a Pre-Registration Pharmacy Technician, who’s been doing her apprenticeship at Treloar’s for 2 years. Prior to that she was a student support assistant working night shifts on Gauvain House.

Emma is a Medicines Management Technician, she’s been qualified for 2 years, she took 2 years to complete her apprenticeship, and previously she worked as a dispenser in a local pharmacy. She started Treloar’s as a Medicines Management Assistant.

What have you learnt during your apprenticeship?

Emma: The course teaches you the science behind medicines and how they work with the biology of the body. You learn about the legal aspects of prescribing and supplying medicines.

When the GPs prescribe a new medicine to a student, our role is to update the student's records, and to review how that medicine will be administered to the student. We have to consider all the elements of the student's school timetable and their regular routine and their preferences. How will this medication react with their other medication? Do these drugs work safely together? Does the student have a gastrostomy? Can this medicine be crushed into a liquid? Do the timings of the medication fit with the care routines in place?

The training helps us to put the patient / student's needs first.

As students progress through the school and college, we can support them to learn to take care of their own medicines and self-administer, or direct their own care needs.

What’s your favourite part of your role?

Emma: Interacting with students in the residential houses, completing medicine audits, and checking that students have all the correct medicines available in the correct quantities in their medicine safes, in their bedrooms.

Laura: If we’ve done everything right, students might not even know we exist, as we do the audits when they are in class.

What are the benefits of doing an apprenticeship?

Emma: Personal career progression, developing my experience and skills.

Laura: I was undecided about my career, I saw the job advert and thought ‘I could do this’. It gave me a real focus. I was able to learn on the job and put my skills into practice in real time.

What does a typical day look like?

Emma: We start at 8 am, checking in the medicines for primary students and day school students when they arrive. We check they have the correct medicines with them for the school day and we ensure they have supplies of any emergency medication.

Laura: From 9 untill lunch time, we move to the residential houses to do medicine safe audits for the residential students, ensuring they have enough supplies and correct quantities in their bedrooms. We’re a team of 4 and we split the audits for the 6 residential houses between us.

When we are assessed to be competent, we transcribe medicines onto eMAR (our electronic medication management system), receive stock deliveries and check in those. This helps our teams administer 300,000 doses of medicines and feed each year. 

What would you say to someone thinking about starting an apprenticeship?

Emma: ‘Do it.’ It does require a commitment of time, but it’s absolutely worth it, building my skills and knowledge has been amazing.

Laura: My confidence has grown, I have the skills and knowledge to offer advice, learning to work within my scope of practice.

The apprenticeship has opened up so many opportunities for work in the future. The role of a Pharmacy Technician is a growing role and there are opportunities in hospitals, care settings and prisons. Pharmacy Technicians have a bigger role now picking up work in GP surgeries.