Senior NHS directors support regional employability agenda
A WORKSHOP held last month for human resources directors in the NHS raised awareness about employability issues as the organisation seeks to work more closely with long-term unemployed people and those on benefits.
Following recent proposals by Jobcentre Plus (JCP) on how staff could be recruited from a wider pool, Tracey Sharpe, deputy regional director for public health delivery, stressed the importance for the NHS of bringing about a sea change in employability with the recently-announced Jobs Pledge, which aims to equip North East trusts to help people secure jobs.
She also spoke of the increasing demand on GPs expected because of the recession and the many redundancies companies had been forced to make.
City of Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust workforce development manager (HR), Dennis Little, outlined a highly successful “routeway recruitment” project at Sunderland General Hospital which resulted in the appointment of 22 healthcare assistants and seven theatre support workers.
Keen to deal only with a single point of contact to address recruitment, Dennis also wished to adopt a corporate social responsibility model of recruitment, similar to that which had worked so well with the Gateshead Treatment Centre in 2005.
He therefore talked to the city council and JCP to put together a job description and person specification for the various roles.
He said: “The planning for this recruitment drive started in September 2008.
“We ran the programme in November and the recruits started on January 12. By then, they had already gone through criminal records bureau checks and a four-week training programme, so they were coming to us for work trials as preferred candidates due to the pre-screening that took place.
“We are looking for people with level one literacy skills and JCP assisted with this, as did the city council and Employer Link, who co-ordinated the programme and found suitable candidates for us.
“Obtaining candidates this way has worked. We are getting a higher calibre of potential recruits and, due to the recent increase in the number of job-ready but recently redundant people, they are bringing different skills to the norm, which is creating a more diverse workforce for us, so that is all to the good.
“The whole project has been so successful we are repeating it in June.”
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