We’ve recently run a recruitment campaign to recruit as many second and third year nursing students as possible to support our front line staff during the Covid-19 outbreak.

130 student nurses joined our Trust in April. This included final year nursing students who were already doing their placements with our Trust, as well student nurses who were undertaking their training at non-partner universities but lived locally and wanted to help. 

Kenye Karemo, Director of Workforce Development and Innovation, who devised the programme says: “We didn’t want to lose these valuable future nurses who have the skill set to help our frontline. We also wanted to minimise the disruption to their nurse training programme. A lot of these student nurses would have lost their training time on the ward. Our recruitment of these student nurses allowed them to continue getting the work experience they need before they fully qualify.”

Each student nurse went through a bespoke induction programme designed to support their learning. A workplace model of clinical supervision was created to ensure students were adequately supervised and mentored in their role.

The project has been led by Emma Skinner, Preceptorship Lead and Jessica Stephenson, Clinical Education Practitioner. Emma said: “Due to Covid-19 we have had to be creative and work rapidly in order to continue to support both our students and our workforce at this time to continue to deliver high quality care to our patients. It has been fantastic to be part of an innovative initiative and have such great support from colleagues across the Trust.”  

Mohamed Bangura (pictured above), a student at the University of East London who joined our Trust in April said: “One of the reasons I wanted to become a nurse is to help people. Though the circumstance is unfortunate I am happy to be part of this wonderful opportunity to help.”

If you are interested in joining our nursing team please visit our website find out more.