North Cumbria Integrated Care (NCIC) held a recruitment day to help boost their staffing levels.

The successful event in Carlisle saw the recruitment of 41 healthcare assistants and 3 apprentice healthcare social workers in just one day.

The new appointments will be based across the organisation, including at West Cumberland Hospital, Cumberland Infirmary and in community hospitals.

A report from the end of July by MPs said that large numbers of unfilled vacancies across the NHS posed a “serious risk” to patient safety as the health service tries to deal with immediate health concerns and the covid surgery backlog.

“We have recently invested £3.8m in our permanent nurse and healthcare assistant workforce which has enabled us to recruit to a large number of vacancies at once” said Chief Nurse, Jill Foster.

“I am really pleased that we have been able to appoint so many healthcare assistants, who will be absolutely valuable to our growing our team and will make such a big difference to our patients and our staff.”

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Becoming a healthcare assistant can also be the first step to a nursing career. The nursing degree apprenticeship is a route that can be taken to gain the nursing qualification while still working and gaining hands on experience.

“I am really pleased with how this second recruitment and assessment day has gone and we’ve been able to appoint even more roles than we did previously” Amanda Dunkley, Assistant Director People Services, said.

“I am really keen to continue this interactive format to recruit staff as we’ve had so much good feedback and we’re already in planning stages for the next one.”

NCIC has supported 54 nurses through their apprenticeship so far, with more to graduate next year.

For more information about vacancies at the trust visit the website.

 

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