Hull bucks national trend on recruitment of nurses by offering jobs to students
PROUD TO BE A NURSE: Newly qualified Silke Hickey
By Simon Bristow
Student nurses at the University of Hull are to be offered jobs at Hull’s hospitals before they graduate as part of an on-going recruitment programme.
Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (HUTH) will offer jobs to third-year degree students, providing they achieve their degrees, as part of its “Remarkable People” recruitment campaign.
Around 90 per cent of student nurses at the University of Hull now come to work at Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill Hospital since the launch of the campaign five years ago.
Simon Nearney, Director of Workforce and Organisational Development at HUTH, said: “In the past, students completed their studies in Hull but then some chose to move away and work elsewhere.
“Our programme means we can offer local people jobs in their home city, giving them the security of knowing they have a job when they qualify. Instead of trying to find work, they can then concentrate on their studies knowing they will start their careers with us.”
Since the programme began five years ago, 564 newly qualified nurses have joined both hospitals from the University of Hull. While other hospital trusts around the country have struggled to recruit, Hull is bucking the trend and has a nursing vacancy rate of just one per cent compared to the national rate of 10.3 per cent.
Student nurses promised jobs with the trust are supported by nurse educators at the trust, given help with their studies to help them achieve the best possible results.
The trust will host a recruitment event at the university next month with the view to attracting future staff. Interviews will be held in February with job offers made to successful candidates well in advance of them sitting their final exams. They will then begin work at the hospitals as newly qualified nurses in September.
One of those to have benefited from the programme is Silke Hickey, who has just become a nurse at the age of 46.
Six years ago, she had a part-time job she wasn’t happy in and family to bring up, but with support of her husband Darren began to pursue the career she had always wanted.
Not sure of where to start, Silke spoke to the University of Hull’s student hub and, with Darren’s support, passed both her GCSE maths and the university certificate in Health and Social Care before applying for a place on the three-year nursing degree course.
She gained experience caring for a man with cerebral palsy and volunteering with a physiotherapist to get patient experience, so she was accepted for the course, beginning her studies in September 2019. However, just months later, the world was in the grip of the Covid-19 pandemic and her studies switched to full-time online learning.
Covid meant her student placements were cancelled but Silke was determined to use the experience to her advantage, working as a health care assistant on a Covid palliative care ward.
Then, as her thoughts turned to life after qualification, Silke learned the recruitment team from HUTH were coming to the university with a view to recruiting nurses on completion of their degrees.
She said: “When I was asked if there was any particular area I’d like to work in, I said Ward 36 because I’d worked there on placement and had absolutely loved it.
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“The senior staff were so supportive, and the rest of the team had been a phenomenal help so that’s where I wanted to be, this is a team I want to be part of.”
Silke was offered a job on Ward 36 and it took a massive amount of pressure off so she could focus on her final exams.
“Just knowing I had a job once I’d qualified was a massive help,” she said. “HUTH had been so supportive during my studies and had a recognized and established system in place for newly qualified nurses so I didn’t hesitate in applying for a job with the trust.”
After gaining her degree, Silke has now taken up her post on Ward 36. “I had my first day in my ‘blues’ the other day and I was so proud,” she said.
“My advice to anyone thinking of becoming a nurse is just go for it. I have accomplished this a little later in life and with three children living at home. Anything is possible if you put your mind to it.”