by Healthdaq | Nov 16, 2020 | News
Healthdaq® (formerly known as HealthSectorTalent®) a global healthcare talent consultancy is behind one of the UK’s first mass vaccination recruitment advertising campaigns for Northern Ireland’s Public Health Agency.
Having already designed, built and managed the HSC Workforce Appeal on behalf of the Department of Health Northern Ireland earlier in the year, the highly successful Workforce Appeal was reopened by the Minister of Health in October to meet the rising demand for clinical and non-clinical temporary staff across the whole of the health and social care system in Northern Ireland.
Over the past 9 months, the HSC Workforce Appeal has generated over 30,000 applications and delivered thousands of candidates directly to the five NHS Trusts, Ambulance Service, Independent Care Sector and more recently the Public Health Agency for Contact Tracing.
As countries and governments around the world gear up to roll-out their Covid-19 mass vaccination programmes, Healthdaq has created an additional campaign under the existing Workforce Appeal to source and recruit thousands of Registered Healthcare Professionals, Healthcare Support Workers and Administration staff to support and assist in the provision of Northern Ireland’s regional vaccination programme.
by Healthdaq | Nov 2, 2020 | News
Healthdaq® (formerly known as HealthSectorTalent®) a global healthcare talent consultancy has been shortlisted for Innovation in Recruitment Award at this year’s Personnel Today Awards in the UK.
The shortlisted entry is for the company’s role in designing, building and managing a large-scale whole of health system, multi-stakeholder and time-sensitive recruitment campaign on behalf of the Department of Health Northern Ireland during the initial outbreak of Covid-19 in March 2020.
The following excerpt of the shortlisted campaign is profiled on the Personnel Today website.
Northern Ireland’s health and social care system employs 58,000 people and includes the Department of Health, Public Health, five NHS Trusts and Northern Ireland’s Ambulance Service. The system came under significant pressure during the coronavirus pandemic, with increased demand for services, higher than usual sickness absence and the need to rapidly build a contingent workforce. It also needed to facilitate the recruitment of final-year medical, nursing and allied health students, alongside doctors and nurses that had either retired or left the profession.
Healthdaq supported NI’s DoH to assemble a recruitment project team made up of key stakeholders, forming a central recruitment command and control centre to act as a single point of contact. Application and interview processes needed to adhere to protocols while working around restrictions such as social distancing and remote working. Over the course of 35 days, a team of 162 people working across nine organisations delivered the largest recruitment campaign of its kind in Northern Ireland.
Candidates had to complete a two-step registration and application, selecting their occupation group and preferred geographical location. A total of 20,085 initial expressions of interest were received by the campaign with over 4,000 in the first 24 hours of being launched. These then needed to be screened before formal application – 11,642 formal applications were completed representing a 57.9% conversion rate from expressions of interest received. Candidates were kept updated at every stage of the process.
While there is no direct comparative data as the pandemic was a new challenge, the success of the recruitment campaign can be measured against the Republic of Ireland’s Covid-19 hiring drive, which only resulted in 63 candidates starting.
In Northern Ireland, 420 nurses were recruited directly by six employers, bypassing the need to use agencies. The equivalent cost of recruiting this number of nurses from overseas would be over £4.6m, while the reduction in agency spend is around £19.4m per annum based on an hourly inclusive rate of £23.71.
The HSC Workforce Appeal was reopened by the Health Minister on 2 October 2020.
by Healthdaq | Oct 8, 2020 | News
Northern Ireland’s Health Minister Robin Swann has welcomed the relaunch of the Department’s Workforce Appeal to boost staff numbers to assist in the battle against Covid-19.
The initial appeal in March, designed, built and managed by Healthdaq® (formerly known as HealthSectorTalent®) generated a total of 18,719 expressions of interest with 11,867 of these applicants converting into formal applications based on their occupation, experience and the demand from Trusts.
Overall, 1,702 applicants from the previous campaign were deemed to be recruited with 658 currently on standby in the Trust’s corporate staff banks, 145 applicants have been offered a job and are pending their acceptance with 899 appointed and deployed in the service.
Minister Swann said:
“This was a phenomenal response at such a challenging time and I thank each and every one of those applicants for stepping up at that time. We have now re-opened the workforce appeal to build capacity again with particular focus on certain roles and positions. I would urge anyone with the relevant skills and experience to consider applying to join or return to the health service. We are in an evolving situation that may require further recruitment drives going forward and we will continue to monitor the situation closely.”
The new Appeal went live on Friday 2 October 2020.
Originally Published on Department of Health, Northern Ireland Website – Read Original Release
by Healthdaq | Sep 16, 2020 | News
An appeal to boost Northern Ireland’s health and social care workforce during the Covid-19 pandemic has been shortlisted for a UK-wide award.
The Department of Health worked in partnership with Healthdaq® (formerly known as HealthSectorTalent®) on the campaign which has now been shortlisted in the Excellence in Public Service HR category of the Personnel Today awards.
Shortlist includes:
- Civil Service HR, Cabinet Office
- Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service
- Energus – nucleargraduates
- Department of Health Northern Ireland with Healthdaq
- NHS England & Improvement
- North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College
- North Yorkshire Police
- Now Teach
Health Minister Robin Swann said: “We launched the HSC Workforce Appeal at the end of March and were overwhelmed by the phenomenal response. Our message at that time was simple and urgent – we said we needed people from across all staff groups to come forward and they did. We received over 20,000 expressions of interest and I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who came forward. Being shortlisted for this award is testament to each and every one of you.”
The HSC Workforce Appeal received 3,323 clinical applications, including 123 doctors and 100 nurses who had left or retired from service making themselves available for employment within the health and social care sector. Of the over 3,000 clinical applications 509 have been appointed and 121 have been given offers. A total of 863 individuals have now been appointed while another 145 offers have been made and a further 658 are ready to be deployed if required.
Stephen McLarnon CEO and Head of Global Markets at Healthdaq said: “We are delighted to be shortlisted for this award alongside the Department of Health. A campaign of this size would ordinarily take months to develop but the HSC Workforce appeal was planned and brought online within days so I would like to thank all those who enabled this to happen.”
“The appeal itself was hugely effective and resulted in 11,642 formal applications – this is a conversion rate of 58% – well over double what could normally be expected in a recruitment campaign. I would also like to echo the Health Minister’s sentiments and thank all the staff who stepped forward when our health service needed them most.”
Concluding Minister Swann said: “The online applications have now been paused but the campaign has been designed so that further expressions of interest can be sought quickly if there are further areas of high demand.”
The Department has also been shortlisted in the Innovation in Recruitment category of the Personnel Today awards. View Awards Website.
Originally Published on Department of Health, Northern Ireland Website – Read Original Release
by Healthdaq | Sep 10, 2020 | News
The HSC Workforce Appeal which was designed to boost Northern Ireland’s health and social care workforce during the Covid-19 pandemic has been shortlisted for a fourth UK-wide award.
The Department of Health and Healthdaq® (formerly known as HealthSectorTalent®) have been shortlisted as a finalist for the Laing Buisson Awards 2020 for Outstanding Response to COVID in Healthcare Award.
The award recognises excellent communication, early responses, adapting to and overcoming challenges during the pandemic including the turnaround of a challenging situation in healthcare.
The HSC Workforce Appeal received 3,323 clinical applications, including 123 doctors and 100 nurses who had left or retired from service making themselves available for employment within the health and social care sector.
Of the over 3,000 clinical applications 509 have been appointed and 121 have been given offers. A total of 863 individuals have now been appointed while another 145 offers have been made and a further 658 are ready to be deployed if required.
The Department of Health and Healthdaq has also been shortlisted for the Personnel Today Awards for Excellence in Public Sector HR and Innovation in Recruitment, while Healthdaq has been shortlisted as a Finalist for Resourcing Supplier of the Year for their work in designing, building and managing the campaign.
by Healthdaq | May 23, 2020 | News
More than 11,000 people applied to a recruitment drive which aimed to boost the health and social care workforce in NI during the coronavirus crisis.
Applications to the COVID-19 HSC Workforce Appeal are now closed to help “manage supply and demand”, but can be “quickly re-opened again” if required.
The appeal, which opened on 27 March, was in response to the “enormous pressure” facing the health service.
The Department of Health said 468 people had been appointed.
The appeal which headlined with, “Northern Ireland needs you,” got 18,719 expressions of interest from the public.
Of the 11,644 formal applications:
- 3,209 were for clinical work and 8,435 were for support work
- 468 individuals were appointed
- A further 108 offers have been made.
- A further 857 individuals are job ready awaiting deployment if required
- A further 3,984 can be appointed if required, subject to final clearances
A Department of Health spokesman said the appeal has been a “success”.
“The department is very grateful to all those who expressed an interest, submitted an application or took up a role in response to COVID-19,” he said.
“The figures are a credit to Northern Ireland, and it has been heartening to see the willingness of so many people to help their fellow citizens at such a challenging time,” he added.
This article originally appeared on the BBC website.
The HSC Workforce Appeal was conceived, developed and managed by Healthdaq® (formerly known as HealthSectorTalent®) on behalf of the Department of Health, the five Health and Social Care (NHS) Trusts and Northern Ireland’s Ambulance Service.
