Huge recruitment drive for Birmingham NHS Trust
A recruitment fair is taking place on Saturday at Moseley Hall to recruit 800 staff vacancies - despite ongoing strike action.
A Birmingham NHS trust has launched a huge recruitment drive to curb staff shortages amid ongoing strike action by nurses.
Birmingham Community Healthcare Trust has 800 vacancies and is especially in need of district nurses to work in the community.
It's with the aim to reduce pressure on hospitals.
A recruitment fair at Moseley Hall Hospital this Saturday will even give applicants the opportunity for on the spot interviews – that means attendees could leave with a conditional job offer on the same day.
However, a Royal College of Nursing (RCN) union spokesperson has also indicated that fewer people are applying for nursing jobs due to staffing cuts which have made roles more stressful.
Chief of Nursing at BHCT, Lorrain Galligan, said: "District nurses provide a vital and wide range of care for patients in their own homes but these roles are less visible than those in A&E departments.
“I live, work, and breathe in Birmingham, I was born in Birmingham, I live in Solihull now, but most of the people that work in our trust, it’s the same people that we are looking after, it’s our own families, so it’s so important that we get it right for them.
“We know that if you’re in your own home, you are much more likely to sleep better, eat better, be in a more peaceful surrounding.
“That might be with your family, your friends, your pet, and you will be able to take breaks.
There are 82 vacancies on the Community Nursing Neighborhood team, 16 roles available in the Early Intervention team and seven in the Urgent Community Response team – which gets out to patients within two hours.
There are also available posts for nurse associates, health support workers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, therapy assistants and administrative roles.
Asked about the pressures facing staff members in the context of RCN strikes – the first UK-wide action in its 106 year history – Ms Galligan said: “People are stressed for a reason and it’s really important that the professionals that are striking have their voice heard.
“The environment that we provide people with is as supportive as we can make it.
“Clearly as an NHS provider in Birmingham we have a huge obligation to ensure that the health and wellbeing of the people that work for us is a priority.
“Patient care is our number one commitment but looking after our workforce is a vital commitment.”
Lindsay Meeks, Regional Director of the Royal College of Nursing in the West Midlands, pointed to government funding cuts as the reason for the staffing shortage.
She said: “Since 2009 the district nursing workforce in England has been cut by almost half, from 7,000 to around 3,700.
“This is piling on workload pressure not only for nursing staff in district and community health services but also in hospitals because many patients who are well enough to be discharged are occupying a bed solely because of inadequate capacity in the community.
“We want to see the pipeline of nurses expanding, not contracting.
“This staffing crisis is an indictment of the Government’s lack of investment in the NHS at the level it truly needs and its indifference to formulating and funding a coherent NHS workforce plan.
“Nurses don’t want to be taking the strike action we’ve organised over the past three months over the erosion of their pay and poor working conditions but they feel a fair pay deal is a pre-requisite if the NHS is to improve recruitment and retention of staff.
“This, in turn, will ease staffing pressures and help protect and enhance patient care.”
The event at Moseley Hall Hospital is between 9am and 3pm this Saturday, with presentations planned about what it’s like to work in the NHS.