Big thanks to all who applied for KGH jobs during pandemic
Kettering General Hospital is thanking more than 400 people who applied for jobs at the hospital during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
Between March and April the hospital successfully recruited to 186 posts - including 84 healthcare assistants, 39 porters, 24 housekeepers, 31 nurses and eight doctors.
KGH Chief People Officer Mark Smith said: “I want to thank every single person who applied to join #TeamKGH during the pandemic to help us in the battle against coronavirus.
“The pandemic has shown just how much people value the NHS but clearly we understand there was also concern about working in the front line against the disease.
“Nevertheless people did show their support for KGH by applying for all the roles that we advertised.
“We want to thank all those who were successful – and unsuccessful – for their applications during this difficult time.
“Our new colleagues have, and continue, to play an important role during coronavirus. This was particularly important during the period when our staffing levels were impacted on through staff self-isolation, shielding and coronavirus itself.”
KGH Human Resources Manager for Workforce Planning, Rebecca Bell, said: “We expected that recruiting to hospital posts during the pandemic would be challenging because people would be concerned about how little was known about Covid-19, especially in the early days as it spread across the country with devastating effects on families.
“But in fact we found that people did still very much want to work in healthcare and were reassured by the training given and the precautions being taken by our expert teams. “
To make recruitment quicker and easier KGH introduced a fast track process which was supported by national changes in NHS Employers standards and processes to enable us to provide pre-employment clearances in a quicker time.
All interviews were virtual using reducing the need for candidates to come onto the Trust site and attend face to face interviews.
Candidates were able to scan their identity documents and completed forms and send directly back to recruitment via an electronic recruiting system. These were then verified and when candidates were cleared they came in to collect ID badges and uniform.
Mark said: “I would also like to thank my own team who worked really hard and pulled out all the stops during the early days of the pandemic to ensure we were able to safely and quickly recruit additional colleagues to join the team at the Trust.
“This was at a time when they themselves were coping with the challenges of lockdown and the impact of the pandemic on their families and friends.”
To find out more about current opportunities at KGH go to: https://www.kgh.nhs.uk/working-for-us