Brian boosts his career

After more than 20 years of working as an insurance broker, married father of two Brian Scoins took the big step of leaving his job to enrol on a fulltime course at the University of Teesside. Now, two years later, Brian is reaping the rewards of his hard work and commitment with his new job as an Information Analyst with the South Tyneside Health Care NHS Trust.

With an interest in databases and information extraction/analysis, Brian initially enrolled on two short University Certificate of Personal Development (UCPD) courses in Visual Basic Programming (levels one & two). He then followed it up with the HND Computing (Software Development), earning distinctions in every element and being awarded the Edexcel Student Prize in recognition of his commitment and achievement. He will graduate today from the University of Teesside, where he will also be presented with his academic award.

Brian, 45, from Lanchester in County Durham, said: “I was advised by a careers advisor in Durham that Teesside was the best place to study computers and she was right. I found doing the UCPD night classes a lot of fun and very interesting, so after a lot of discussions with my wife and a lot of soul searching, I made the decision to leave my job and become a full time student.

“The biggest worry was financial, but we had enough savings and we managed just fine. I was also confident that it would pay in the end by getting a good job, and it has. The course was really interesting and it took hard work, but was well worth it. I earned distinctions in all of the elements and within a few weeks of completing the course I began my new job at South Tyneside District Hospital.

“My job title is quite long winded - Emergency Services Collaborative Information Analyst. I’m involved in a project which assesses how long people spend in the Accident & Emergency department before either being discharged or referred elswhere. I examine the information on our databases which details type of injury and treatment and times etc, and work with the clinical staff and management to see how the times can be reduced. It’s a major project, part of the national modernisation of the NHS, and I’m very pleased to be working in a job that will benefit people.”

Brian is married to Jennifer and is the father of Rebecca, 10, and eight year old Andrew.

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