Publish date: 18 November 2021
West London NHS Trust won the International Recruitment Experience category at this year's Nursing Times Workforce Awards.
The Trust was chosen as the very best out of a bumper shortlist of 12 entries, including high profile organisations such as Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, Leeds Teaching Hospitals and Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust. The team collected the award at a glitzy ceremony at the Brewery in Central London.
The 12-week Mental Health Integration Programme was developed in 2017 by Practice Development Nurse, Donna Sloss, Associate Practice Development Nurse, Monika Sabharwal, KUF Co-facilitator, Tia Urgasova, along with Local Services Lakeside team and Older People's Mental Health Service.
The programme was created as a way of addressing wider recruitment and retention issues of mental health nurses. The focus was to hire internationally educated nurses (IENs) from the Philippines. The programme helped provide assurance and proof of the concept that IENs met competencies required to work safely within mental health services in the UK.
Successes of the programme include:
- 35 IENs have been hired and we've achieved a 98% retention rate for those staying at the Trust beyond the first year.
- The integration framework developed to support IENs in mental health has been adopted regionally and nationally by Capital Nurse and NHSEI as best practice guidance
- IENs were instrumental in operationalising the first mental health Covid ward in the UK
- The Trust gained a reputation as a preferred employer for overseas mental health nurses
- The Trust has been selected as a pilot trust for the Refugee Nursing Project for nurses in war-torn countries.
