If you are an Operating Department Practitioner please could you tell me about your job?

[bellropes]

Also, what qualifications you needed and the training involved.

Ds2 is interested in this work. I've had a look at the NHS careers site, but would like to hear about it from someone who does it. Would you recommend it etc.?

Hopeful bump

I’m not an ODP but I am a scrub nurse. People I know who are newly trained ODPs and also Apprentice ODPs have all done an access to higher education through our local college which is a one year course- I think it’s a healthcare specific one. They all started as theatre support workers and studied whilst working. The current ones applied for the apprenticeship when it came up in our trust and I have seen several offers recently for these positions.
Whilst training, you will be taught
anaesthetics- assisting the anaesthetist with intubation etc,
Recovery, looking after the patient immediately post operatively including removal of airway and administration of IV analgesia, recognition of post op nausea and in the occasional case, dealing with dangerous post op complications.
Then scrub- you assist the surgeon with passing instruments, sutures, implants, hand out specimens, assist with cutting sutures, some minor retraction of wounds.
It is an interesting area to work in and is highly specialised. It’s a 2 year degree course with a mix of university and hospital placement.
Unlike a nurse, you are unable to go and work on a general ward, only theatres, some ITU and some resus teams. You do hold a professional registration and have a professional accountability.
If you are able to do it as an apprentice then your trust will pay your fees and also pay you iirc £17k per annum. Obviously even if you have to pay tuition fees you would only have to pay for 2 years as opposed to the 3 year nursing degree. But you are more limited to areas of work.
You are on the same pay scale as a nurse and can become band 6, 7 and even 8 so it doesn’t limit your career progression.
Long post but happy to answer more questions if I am able to!

I personally would recommend your DS looks at doing the 3 year nursing degree, particularly if they might wish to travel and work abroad in the future [almost impossible to imagine as a possibility right now I know]. ODP training is not recognised in Australia for example - you need to be a qualified anaesthetic, scrub and/or recovery nurse to work there.
ODPs are limited in terms of only being able to work in the above areas... I am surprised they are qualified to work in ITU as the above poster mentioned - I have never seen an ODP working in ITU and I believe their training is too narrow in focus for it to be honest.
I am also surprised to hear they are apparently on the same pay scale as nurses when their training commitment is shorter and more limited in scope?

Not only are they on the same pay scale as us, when I qualified in 2002, they used to go in at an E grade (equivalent to senior staff nurse or half way up our current band 5 pay scale!).

A good odp is worth every single penny they’re paid and just because they do a different job to nurses doesn’t mean they are less valuable! Over the last year at least lot of ODPs have worked on intensive care units because there is quite a lot of overlap in the basic skill sets (managing lines/airways/drugs/acutely bonkers physiology etc) and many units have needed support from anyone with any relevant skills.

@bellropes your son’s done well to even have heard of ODPing - it doesn’t seem to be the best advertised HCP role! If he hasn’t already, it may be worth approaching a department to see if they can help with work experience if it’s not too late for that once covid’s settled down properly? If the ODPs can’t facilitate that then shadowing anaesthetists would give a useful insight into what ODPs do too as we’re pretty useless without them and spend a lot of time with them! All of that may be difficult for obvious reasons for a while though.

A lot of the ODP job is about meticulous preparation and avoidance of emergencies (there’s a lot more too it than just ‘assisting the anaesthetist with intubation’). There are the odd moments of terrifying drama though! Most of our odp’s seem pretty happy with the practical job, but the frustrations of working in an often under-resources service must be pretty big too.

Greybeardy- I wasn’t trying to belittle when I put “assisting the anaesthetists with intubation” apologies if it came across that way. I don’t do anaesthetics so can’t expand fully on that area and also was trying to give a very generalised idea of the job role.
ODP is a very specialised area and the ODPs I know, only one has stayed in Scrub whereas all the others do anaesthetic and recovery. As a nurse I have a lot of experience in different areas but not the specialist in depth knowledge that my ODP colleagues have in their area of expertise.