A Southampton student has been inspired by his hospital volunteering role to pursue a career in eye surgery.

Raahat Shah, 22, was studying pharmaceutical chemistry when a hospital visit with his grandfather sparked his interest in ophthalmology — the health of the eye.

He is now training to become an eye surgeon at the University of Southampton, thanks to the NHS's 'Volunteer to Career' programme.

The initiative, run by national charity Helpforce, aims to tackle recruitment issues in the health service by giving people without a healthcare background the chance to gain experience before applying for roles or training.

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Raahat said: "If it wasn’t for Volunteer to Career, I wouldn’t be working in healthcare – I just wouldn’t have seen it as a career path that was open to me."

His interest in ophthalmology was piqued during an appointment at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London with his grandfather.

He said: "There was just something about the hospital environment and especially ophthalmology that really appealed to me.

"No one in my family had been a medic and it seemed like a closed world to me – I had no idea how someone from my background could get into it.

"But I saw an opportunity here and I grabbed it with both hands."

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Through the Volunteer to Career scheme, Raahat volunteered at Moorfields once a week for a year, helping patients and doing administrative work.

The 22-year-old called the experience "amazing" and said that he knew "there and then" that he wanted to be an eye surgeon.

Raahat is now in his second year of accelerated graduate medical training at the University of Southampton.

He added: "A high proportion of students on my course are from medical families.

"If you’re not from a family with medical connections it can be difficult to find a way to get the right experience.

"That’s what the VTC scheme did for me – it was a springboard into a medical career."