Nurse recruitment campaign sees NGH nominated in the health sector's top awards

An image of an NGH nurse with a symbolic piggy bank, which was used in the recruitment campaign

The hospital's nurse bank campaign, entitled "Join our bank and we'll invest in you" has been shortlisted in the staff engagement category of the HSJ Awards.

Shortlisted entrants had to demonstrate outstanding practice and innovation that helped to improve patient care and enhance value and efficiency, and have overcome fierce competition to be judged as among UK healthcare’s leading exponents.

Sally-Anne Watts, NGH head of communications said: "I am immensely proud of my team and colleagues at NGH who worked with us to develop the campaign, which was developed to encourage our own workforce to join our in-house staff bank rather than seeking additional shifts via an agency.

Using feedback from focus groups the team used Twitter and Facebook to promoted the benefits of bank working, including support with nurse revalidation, free clinical skills training, opportunities to get experience in different areas of the hospital and weekly pay for bank shifts.

Mrs Watts said: “Feedback from our ward sisters has been that their ability to deliver high quality, safe patient care has been improved as a result of the higher number of NGH-based registered nurses who now form the majority of our nurse bank.

"For our patients, this means they receive greater consistency of care that’s aligned to our core values.”

As a result of the campaign, registered nurse agency expenditure reduced from 10.6 per cent in December 2015 to 7.8 per cent in March 2016 and 5.3 per cent in April 2016.

The shortlisted organisations will now complete presentations and interviews to a judging panel made up of senior and influential figures from the health sector.

The winners will be announced in November.