A joint recruitment campaign led by NHS Devon and Devon County Council in collaboration with Plymouth City and Torbay Councils and the Devon Alliance for International Recruitment has garnered over 1000 applications from overseas experienced social care staff.
The objective of the campaign is to bridge the gap between experienced care workers across the county, strengthening the level of support in Devon’s care sector. Devon County Council has previously noted that there around 30,000 people employed in adult social care in Devon with a vacancy rate of around 10 percent.
The campaign has been hailed an “early success” by One Devon, with the first of the workers to arrive before Christmas this year to support in care homes and a range of community settings.
Tracey Collins, International Nursing Workforce Lead for the Devon Alliance for International Recruitment, said that the pilot demonstrates “the beauty of collaborative work, breaking down barriers and sharing best practice to ensure our patients and clients receive the right care in the right place.”
She highlighted the opportunity to “develop our integrated approach for international recruitment across the health and care system in Devon, working across all of our partners and providers for the benefit of local patients and clients.”
Tracey added: “The alliance has been supporting the NHS with the recruitment of nurses from overseas over the past year having deployed recently its 600th nurse through a low-cost clinical model of international recruitment.
“Our aim is to develop a prototype for international recruitment across social care, NHS and local authority, paving the way that will potentially influence local and national policy across integrated care systems.”
