Hospital Trust to launch £25,000 recruitment campaign

Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has appointed communications and design agency Fluid to help them compete with other hospitals operating with a national shortage of staff.

The trust is trying to alleviate costs of £480,000 per month for agency staff.

A spokesman for the trust said: “Attracting nurses, medics and other key clinicians to work at Sherwood Forest Hospitals is one of our top priorities.

“There is a national shortage of nurses making this a challenge for all Trusts, and at Sherwood Forest Hospitals we are competing with several large teaching hospitals in the area.

“Our staff tell us that this Trust is a great place to work, and that we have an inclusive, warm and friendly culture where staff are empowered to make a difference.”

The trust say this is borne out by the latest CQC report and exit from special measures following significant improvements delivered by our staff over the past year.

The statement adds: “We are very excited to be working with Fluid, a first-rate branding, communications and design agency appointed following a competitive process.

“If we are to attract the right staff for our hospitals, we need to deliver an effective recruitment campaign which goes above and beyond what we have done before.”

“Fluid will work in partnership with HR and communications teams to bring to the table a variety of skills, expertise and capacity that we do not possess in-house.”

The campaign will centre on key messages that are proven to attract the type and calibre of staff we want for Sherwood Forest Hospitals.

Alongside undertaking and analysing research and insight to underpin the campaign, Fluid will develop branded campaign materials such as a recruitment website, posters and banners, and advertising templates, and develop our social media and other approaches to recruitment.

The trust statement adds: “We are doing everything possible to reduce our spend on agency staff, but these costs will remain higher for us compared with other Trusts as long as we have a significant number of vacancies we need to fill.

“We have negotiated a good deal with Fluid at £25k, to include the cost of printing and development.

“This is a small investment compared with the significant amount of money we stand to save as a result of reducing agency and bank spend, which we estimate to be around £480k per month.”