A HANDS-on approach will give 15 and 16-year-olds a real insight into careers in health and care.

Final year pupils at Westleigh High will get a close look at the roles of nurses and care workers and career guidance in those fields in a pioneering project devised by the school and Leigh Primary Care Group.

At the heart of the pilot scheme, which has emerged from a Leigh Education Action Zone (EAZ) initiative, is Westleigh High's health and social care teacher Jane Roberts.

She explained: "To encourage the students I wanted a clearer picture of the real work done by nurses and care workers, particularly here in Leigh. It simply wasn't food enough to teach out of textbooks." So Jane spent six months as a health care observer in an exercise created through the EAZ, GNVQ co-ordinator Phil Arnold and Primary Care Group chief executive Ken Cuthbertson, and is now ready to strengthen the bonds with the next crucial link in a challenging chain.

Jane said: "I have been given the chance to see how local health care really operates. Now I hope to steer the students along that same path."

Jane's Year 11 students are hoping to be given placements in local care centres before they leave in the summer.

"It's the next logical step," she said. "They have the theory, now they need the practice."

"These are all youngsters, 19 of them, keen to go in to nursing and care. We hear of women being brought in from Spain to fill Britain's urgent care deficiency, but here are students who, given the opportunity, will eventually fill the yawning gap in our system."

Jane began her studies in health and social care three years ago and has been teaching the subject at Westleigh High for the past two years.

"Sitting in on Primary Care Group meetings has been a revelation," she said.

"It has helped me clearly understand the difficulties faced by nurses, physiotherapists, health visitors and care workers - and how they cope with those problems."