Trust's "Recruitment and Retention Strategy" aims to combat poor image

More staff at the county’s main NHS trust would advise friends and family not to work there than would recommend it, a report says.

The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust is hoping to bolster staff numbers and fight its “historical stigmatization and perception challenge” with a three-to-five-year Recruitment and Retention Strategy.

The trust, which employs more than 6,000 staff, hope to do so by improving its public image and enhancing the career coaching and rewards it offers workers.

A report, due to go before the Telford and Wrekin CCG board next week, says 34 per cent of SaTH staff would recommend the trust as a workplace, while 38 per cent would not. The national averages are 65 and 16 per cent, respectively.

The document says: “The environment in which our staff are working is increasingly complex. This is exacerbated by the current shortages in healthcare staff.
“The shortage of candidates with the right skills, abilities and experience in many professions has created a more competitive market, coupled with an ageing workforce and increasing turnover.
“The ability to deliver high-quality, compassionate care depends upon recruiting and retaining the right people with the right skills.
“Nationally, the percentage of colleagues who would recommend the organisation to friends and family as a place to work is 65 per cent, while the average who would not recommend their organisation is 16 per cent.
“SaTH is well below average, with 34 and 38 per cent, respectively.
“SaTH needs to increase substantive colleague numbers in some areas in order to ensure establishments meet safer staffing standards to eliminate reliance on the variable workforce and, in particular, agency colleagues.”

It says the public image of SaTH is a “key challenge”.
“The trust is at significant risk due to the inability to attract, recruit and retain a high calibre and skilled workforce in areas which are hard to recruit, for example medical colleagues, registered nurses and therapists,” the report adds.
“This recruitment and retention strategy will aid in informing actions to be implemented to mitigate these risks.”

The strategy to attract recruits includes working with an “external employer brand agency”, offering a “relevant and well-marketed benefits package”, raising SaTH’s profile with those leaving education or returning to the workforce and “offering structured and targeted work experience, internships, apprenticeships and graduate schemes”.
The retention strategy includes developing “an improved approach to flexible working”, providing “career coaching” and identifying “high-potential” staff.

The board of Telford and Wrekin NHS Clinical Commissioning Group will discuss the report when it meets on Tuesday, March 10.