Publish date: 24 June 2022
This week the Trust is celebrating Refugee Week (20 to 26 June).
As part of the awareness week, the Trust is shining a spotlight on its refugee recruitment programme.
Currently it employs eight refugee Nurses from overseas and has been working closely with the charity Talent Beyond Boundaries since June 2021. The charity is key to sourcing CVs and other important information about potential candidates.
The Trust was pleased to welcome its first three refugee nurses from Lebanon, originally from Palestine, in February. The nurses have been working at Clayponds Hospital and have recently successfully passed their OSCE exams. The OSCE exam is designed to assess their ability to competently apply their professional nursing and midwifery knowledge and skills in the UK practice.
As part of our commitment to supporting this cause, the Trust was pleased to accommodate an additional five refugee health care professionals to commence employment within the Trust as Health Care Assistants (HCAs). The aim is for these new nurses to develop into band 5 nurses and they too will need to complete their OSCE exams.
The latest refugee nurse to join the Trust was Louai, he's part of the eight refugees who were employed via Talent Beyond Boundaries.
He said: "I believe that challenges help you become the best version of yourself. Thank you to West London NHS Trust for the opportunity to work for you. I am very much looking forward to becoming part of the team and making my dreams come true."
At the West London Trust we believe that pastoral support is a vital part of international recruitment and has helped in maximizing the retention of Trust-wide employment.
The current eight nurses have regular wellbeing sessions, where the practice development team are able to support each nurse's emotional and professional needs.
Donna Sloss, Head of Nursing Practice Development and Innovation at West London NHS Trust, has been leading on international recruitment since March 2018. The team was awarded the “Best International Recruitment Experience” at the Nursing Times Workforce Award, with a key focus around the in-house integration programme designed to help adult nurses integrate smoothly within the mental health practice.
Donna said: "As part of the expansion of international recruitment, we have collaboratively partnered with Talent Beyond Boundaries to recruit refugee nurses based in Lebanon. To date we currently have on boarded eight refugee nurses who we are delighted to support within our services. This is being made possible by good working relationships across service lines and the corporate team.
"We would like to give a big shout out to our dedicated refugee nurses who have demonstrated bravery and courage by embarking on this journey and showing immense commitment to the nursing profession. Thank you for choosing team West London."
As well as recruiting overseas refugee nurses, the Trust is interested in hiring refugee candidates who are already based in the UK.
The NWL Refugee Employment Programme was created to explore opportunities for the Trust and neighboring NHS organisations to engage with the large number of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and now Ukraine.
The programme has teamed up with the Shaw Trust, which has been hosting regular recruitment fairs in collaboration with Hammersmith and Fulham Council, aimed at refugees who are based in the country.
Nathan Christy-Plummer, Deputy Director of Workforce said: “As an Anchor institution, our Trust has a responsibility to engage in supporting the local community with regards to refugees that have arrived from a number of difficult environments. The aim of the programme is to create a rapid recruitment pathway by building relationships with key partners, enabling appropriately qualified and documented refugees a quicker route to finding employment locally. Whilst we will endeavor to create a rapid process, we pride ourselves on our award winning ‘pastoral care’ which will not be compromised in this process. This in turn will help us to retain these members of staff and provide a fulfilling career path for them.”
