Case studies
International Recruitment Framework
Background
In November 2020 Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (SPFT) was successful in securing an NHSI International Nurse Recruitment Grant to support them in procuring Mental Health nurses.
The Trust set up a small project team consisting of Nurse Education and HR Colleagues to take this work forward. However, most of the project team, whilst having been previously involved in procurement process, did not have experience procuring agencies for international recruitment.
As international recruitment was a new venture for the Trust, it was decided that it would be necessary to secure agency support with experience in International Recruitment and in particular, Mental Health.
The solutionSPFT approached NHS Commercial Solutions as their NHS Workforce Alliance partner to support with this project, and a full procurement process followed.
Due to a tight timeline stipulated in the NHSI funding proposal, the Trust was keen to engage with an agency as soon as possible.
The key to the success of this project was the support of the team at NHS Commercial Solutions in agreeing tight timescale for the procurement process at an early stage. This ensured everyone involved had key dates agreed in in diaries as far as possible .
The resultsThe procurement process resulted in two experienced agencies being appointed to ensure SPFT will meet its goal of recruiting 60 overseas Mental Health nurses by spring 2022.
Kate McLachlan, Head of HR Operations at Sussex Partnership Foundation trust, commented:
“The Trust was lucky to have support on this project from the team at NHS Commercial Solutions. The team provided us with invaluable guidance and support throughout the whole project and ensured that we adhered to the agreed timelines. They supported us with preparing the tender documentation and the whole procurement process from start to finish and were always available to help and guide us.”