An event held in Carlisle at the weekend (11 June), led to 39 new healthcare assistants being recruited to work across NHS services in north Cumbria.
We were delighted to appoint to so many roles following an NHS assessment.
This comes following the £3.8m investment to fund more permanent roles within the Trust, which was announced earlier this year. Healthcare assistants are vital to support the nursing teams in delivering care to patients.
The appointments will be based across the organisation, including at West Cumberland Hospital, Cumberland Infirmary and in community hospitals.
NCIC’s Chief Nurse, Deputy Chief Nurse, 14 other nursing leads and 13 members from People Services were also involved in delivering the assessment centre process. It was a real collaboration of teams and feedback from the sessions has been excellent.
Georgia Wright, Deputy Chief Nurse, said:
“It was great to see so many candidates with the same passion for care in one place. The investment into our workforce is extremely important to be able to provide the best care to our patients. It is also allowing us to provide more vacancies to our local communities and gives us more opportunities to develop our current colleagues across the Trust.
“I am really looking forward to seeing our workforce continue to grow and develop.”
The assessment process was a mix between group activities and individual interviews. The Trust core values was at the heart of the day, with the activities geared up to get the candidate thinking about and demonstrating our values.
Amanda Dunkley Assistant Director of People Services said: “It was a really positive event, very collaborative and helped us think about which person might be better suited to a particular ward environment as we were appointing to the different teams across NCIC, not just one team so it really worked well. It was great to meet so many people from a variety of employment backgrounds who all had a passion to work for their local NHS. We are looking forward to holding more events like this later in the year.”
Some of the feedback for the day included:
“Fantastic team building exercises prior to interview. Everyone was lovely, I felt welcomed right from the start and felt comfortable to speak in front of everyone, it was a great way to interview.”
“It was a great experience, I haven’t been to any interviews like this and I enjoyed it.”
“Positive morning, very lovely and friendly staff, made to feel at ease.”
“Really enjoyed today, felt at ease throughout. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming. Had fun doing the group activities.”
“I have really enjoyed the experience, all the staff were very welcoming and I found the whole experience to be informative and fun.”
“I’ve had a really good time, all the nurses and members of staff have been really helpful and welcoming. Really good experience.”
“Excellent team building exercise made you feel less nervous about the interview. Nice to meet people who you may work with in the future.”
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.
NCIC has supported 23 nurses through their apprenticeship so far, with a further 31 to graduate this year and some next year too. We are also supporting our first cohort of apprentice midwives.
If you’re looking for the right role for you at NCIC, you can find all of our current vacancies over on our website: ncic.nhs.uk/careers
