For this week’s Learning at Work Week, 111 Health Advisor Michelle shares how she made the switch from teaching to working for NWAS.

In my role I help to answer 111 calls from the public, where I carry out health assessments and signpost people to relevant services. 

Before this role and joining NWAS in 2025, I had a long career as a teacher, working with pupils with additional needs due to their mental health. 

Due to changes in education, schools becoming academies and the increasing workload, I decided it was time to make a career change.  

I came across NWAS at a careers fair stand and felt this role enabled to me to still help people, while still using my empathy and critical thinking skills from teaching and supporting student’s mental health. 

It was scary to step away and do something different, to go from expert to learner but also refreshing! 

The best thing about my role is being able to help people and getting them the right level of care. 

I had an intensive training programme to prepare me for all the different systems we use, and to give me a good knowledge and grounding of different health conditions, such as the signs of stroke or heart attack. 

I then had a further support plan for taking calls, which built you up until you’re ready to take calls independently. 

We also have regular call audits to review and listen back to your calls, discuss learning points or ask questions, and identify what went well and what I could have done differently.  

The ongoing support and opportunities for learning are really good. I’ve also recently completed online training on our assessment systems, awareness of health inequalities, and sexual abuse, to help improve my interactions with patients. 

At the moment I’m just to trying to embed all of this different training into my work but in the future I’d maybe like to join our education team and get involved in training other NWAS staff. 

Visit our careers pages to find out more about our roles and working for us.