Inclusive Recruitment Project

Overview

In September 2022, a project was initiated to improve inclusive recruitment within the West Yorkshire NHS Mental Health, Learning Disability, and Autism (MHLDA) Trusts. Funded by NHS England, this collaboration between the West Yorkshire MHLDA Workforce Collaborative and Touchstone aimed to explore innovative ways to engage, attract, support, recruit, and retain candidates from underrepresented groups for job vacancies, training, and volunteer opportunities in the NHS. This initiative supports the broader goal of making NHS recruitment practices more accessible and inclusive to address workforce gaps and health inequalities.

Objectives

The purpose of this project was to:

• Reduce barriers in the recruitment process.
• Increase awareness of job roles in the NHS to diverse groups.
• Increase diversity in the workforce by working with our local voluntary, community or social enterprise (VCSE) organisations to recruit from under-represented groups and local communities, ensuring the workforce across the three trusts is representative of the communities they work with.
• Support trusts to be local anchor institutions, recruiting locally and supporting the reduction in health in equalities.
• Promote trusts as inclusive and diverse employers.
• Reduce vacancies across the trusts.
• Have more accessible services by employing people from diverse groups and with different lived experiences.

Approach

The project aimed to increase awareness of various roles in the mental health sector within Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LYPFT), South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (SWYPFT) and Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust (BDCFT). Several methods were tested to achieve this goal, including virtual recruitment drives, in-person job fairs, one-to-one employment support, educational workshops, and providing advice on systemic changes to recruitment processes. The project was supported by a fully integrated marketing communications campaign.

Results

The project made a significant impact by engaging under-represented groups in NHS mental health roles. It provided employment support to 168 individuals, resulting in 13 interviews and six job offers. Through 24 external job fairs, it reached 1,146 people and through 4 in-person local events, it reached 550 people. In addition, four virtual recruitment events through the platform vFairs, attracted 1,254 registrations, predominantly from Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups (75%). This led to 39 job offers or progression to the next recruitment stage. Additionally, seven in-person workshops and 22 webinars were held on various mental health careers such as psychological professions, non-clinical roles, support work and allied health professions. Notably, the project won the RLDatix Fairer Award for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, enhancing its profile.

Lessons Learnt

The project’s success was driven by strong collaboration with key organisations, effective outreach to under-represented communities, and a comprehensive communication strategy that addressed data poverty and IT literacy. Providing guidance and support on reasonable adjustments also increased applications and confidence. However, challenges included high workloads and staffing issues within trusts affecting support for events, inconsistencies in job descriptions and recruitment processes across and within Trusts causing confusion, lengthy application processes and delays between support leading to candidate dropouts, and difficulties in obtaining references and requesting reasonable adjustments due to past negative experiences.

Recommendations

For staffing, it is recommended to have a dedicated team consisting of a project coordinator, an employment advisor, and a part-time admin. Full engagement and collaboration of all NHS trusts with the external team are crucial to promoting roles and improving accessibility and inclusion in recruitment processes. Additionally, the project highlighted the effectiveness of hyperlocal recruitment in reaching and engaging communities, suggesting a greater focus on this method in future initiatives.

Contact Information

Sonya Robertshaw, Workforce Project Lead (Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism), sonya.robertshaw@nhs.net

“Having a diverse workforce and supporting our staff to be their best at work and flourish is a key priority. Investing in inclusive recruitment and lived experience benefits both patients and staff, supports retention and helps us to address the workforce challenges that our NHS faces. This project has successfully supported people into employment but also provided lots of valuable learning about the barriers that people continue to face – we will use this learning to shape future workforce projects and recruitment processes in the NHS Trusts.”