Starting your career as a phlebotomist
To train, or not to train
To be honest, training in the UK is inconsistent, unregulated and non-standardised. There are Trainee Phlebotomist roles out there that don’t require you to have any training. They will take completely untrained individuals and provide an extensive programme of in-house training.
However, if I’m looking at a CV (and we look at many here at Bloods & beyond), even for an entry level role, and I can see an applicant has already attended a good quality venepuncture training course, giving them solid background knowledge and basic skills, they are instantly going to the top of my shortlist.
Our courses are specifically written to cover the CH132 National Occupational Standards for Obtaining Venous Blood Samples, ensuring you have all the knowledge you need to meet the minimum basic standards required by the NHS. You also benefit from becoming part of our network for the duration of your course to help supercharge your knowledge with the collective experience of over 100 phlebotomists.
Venepuncture Practices & Techniques
What’s next?
But, once you’ve completed your training, what next? Where do you get your first opportunity?
Unlike other medical professions, there is no defined career pathway for phlebotomists. If you want to be a nurse, for example, the pathway is quite straight forward. Enrol on a nursing degree, and there will probably be a job waiting for you when you qualify.
For a phlebotomist, it is not quite that simple. Every phlebotomist has there own story to tell about how they got into the role.The right place, at the right time
I remember training a lady who started as the cleaner at her local GP. From here she got a job on the reception, and from here she was asked if she would like to learn to take blood to assist the over worked phlebotomist. So her practice manager sent her on one of our courses.
I work with several phlebotomists who got their first opportunity after volunteering in a vaccination centre during the COVID19 pandemic, and were given the opportunity to learn to take blood as part of this role.
It’s not what you know, it’s who you know
A lot of phlebotomists will get their first opportunity to shadow and take some bloods through a friend who might work in a phlebotomy clinic or a GP surgery. Or who might be happy to supervise them as they complete our In-house Supervision Competency Certificate.
Seize the opportunities
Of course, not everyone is lucky enough to have had opportunities like these handed to them. Knocking on the doors of local GP surgeries without an ‘in’ can be a slog, and comes down to your own gift of the gab to get you’re foot in the door.
GP surgeries are laws unto themselves. If they want to be helpful, they will be. But if they want to find a reason not to help, it’s hard to argue with them. It is possible though, we have seen many success stories of phlebotomists getting their first opportunities through sheer determined grit, and not taking no for an answer.
For example, if a GP surgery rejects your offer to volunteer because of insurance issues, go and get yourself some insurance. It costs about £75 a year from MMI4U.
If they think GDPR will be an issue, you can boost your CV with a short, online GDPR course.
Ultimately, they might still reject your advances, but at least they will have to simply admit that they don’t want to help, and you’ll be better prepared for the next opportunity.
If you really find yourself frustrated, we have worked hard to create a CPD accredited Competency Certificate to ensure you have the opportunity to work in our phlebotomy clinic in Bakersfield for a shift.
Do the hard yards
It’s important to recognise that you might not jump straight into your dream phlebotomy job. You have to do the hard yards to build up your experience. This could include shadowing, volunteering or working for a very small wage. If you can get yourself on the bank at your local hospital, it is hard work, for not great pay, but absolutely invaluable experience, and a job where you can pick and choose your hours to top up your experience as and when you feel like it.
Once you’ve accrued enough experience, you can apply for jobs with agencies, and could even come and work with us at Bloods & beyond.
It’s important to fail
We would dearly love to be able to offer all of our trainees a job straight after their course. But unfortunately, the nature of working as a mobile phlebotomist means that you will be working on your own, with no back up or support.
We normally recommend that you must have taken at least 100 bloods in a clinical setting before you go out on the road. And not 100 successful bloods. It’s really important that you’ve missed a few, and you understand how to deal with that situation when it arises.
But nothing makes me prouder than when a trainee gets back in touch with us after a few months, and we are able to add them to our network.
At the heart of Bloods & beyond is a hope to provide more opportunities to phlebotomists, to use their skills to maximise their income.
A great place to start
This won’t be true in every area, but some great places to look for your first role are:
Boots – Boots run private phlebotomy clinics and will offer on the job training to new phlebotomists.
Superdrug – Superdrug offer a very similar service.
The NHS Blood Service – This service are always looking for volunteers, who can turn into employees. You can start as a ‘Donor Carer’, looking after the donors, pouring the orange juices and ensuring the Clubs and Penguins are all nicely displayed. But this could soon grow in to the role of pre-screening and finger prick testing, and eventually sticking the great big needles into people.
Clinical Research – Don’t dismiss this area. You can get a job as an entry level lab technician, for which basic clinical and phlebotomy skills can be very important.
Your stories
Anyone who has been on one of my courses has heard my story about how I got started as a phlebotomist. Now I’m leaving the comments open for other phlebotomists to share their stories, and hopefully our trainee phlebotomists can gain more inspiration.
If you’d have told me 10 years ago that I would have been a phlebotomist, I would have laughed in your face. I was working in social care, in staff development, standing in front of people, delivering presentations.
A friend, who ran a company with a small team of mobile phlebotomists, asked me if I could write a course for phlebotomists. What the hell do I know about phlebotomists? I went on a course, and, working with an experienced phlebotomist, I wrote a course.
I started to deliver this course, alongside the ‘real’ phleb, I’d lead the theory, and she would lead the practical. And obviously some of it sunk in. My friend asked me if I could start taking some bloods for him, which still wasn’t really anything I was interested in. But eventually he twisted my arm, for emergencies only. But I still wasn’t very confident, so I needed to gain more experience.
The phleb I trained with sorted it out for me to join her for a day in her GP surgery, which was an invaluable experience. And my Mum, who needed regular bloods, let me take her bloods. Through this my confidence and experience started to grow, and I had many interesting adventures in hospitals all over the country. There was once a 24 hr period where I completed 13 appointments and earned £1,820!! That was a good day.
When COVID came, my phlebotomy skills were in high demand, and far from doing a couple a week, I was now doing 4 or 5 appointments a day. And then I applied for the bank at the hospital, and I was doing 40-50 appointments a day!
From there, I never looked back. Once I was very reluctant, but now I love it. I couldn’t see myself doing anything else.
I started my phlebotomy career when I was working for the Covid vaccination team, a nurse told me to try phlebotomy because she thought I would do well, however I enrolled in a introduction to phlebotomy course with Edd which was a excellent course, and a little while later I enrolled in the advanced phlebotomy course with Edd which again was a excellent course, I then did some community phlebotomy for a while, however I left that and went to work for my local health authority three days a week and I also do mobile phlebotomy for Edd and Angela and I have to say my journey into phlebotomy has been an incredible journey I can honestly say I thoroughly enjoy every day I’m working both as a static and a mobile phlebotomist very rewarding and a worthwhile job to do.
Thanks for sharing your story Tony. Out of interest, how did you go from the training to your first role in community phlebotomy?