Initially Bedford Hospital & Luton and Dunstable University Hospital, were separate Trusts. They merged to become Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in April 2020, caring for a population of around 620,000 people in and around Bedfordshire. Search Recruitment began supplying nurses to the separate Trusts, focusing on India, the Philippines and Europe, around 10 years ago and the relationship has continued post-merger.

With the announcement of the UK’s intention to leave the EU in June 2016, many NHS Trusts experienced an immediate and significant drop off in applications from European-trained nurses to work in the UK. In addition the NMC changed their language requirements which in turn saw a further significant drop in applications from EU Nurses. The situation was made worse as many who had already settled here expressed an intention to return home.

With demand rising and workforce shortages steadily increasing, alternative recruitment solutions were required. Search focused their efforts on international locations such as India and the Philippines to plug the gap.

With the help of our network of experienced local agents, we identified candidates in India and The Philippines with the required IELTS/OET scores. As part of our quality control processes, these candidates were interviewed initially by our local representatives, then the successful candidates were presented to our clients for a remote interview, coordinated, facilitated and supported by SR, to re-create the in-country interviewing experience at the client hospital sites.

Performance was measured through our success in delivering on all key stages of the project within the
expected timescales which has lead up to achieving 90% success on interview to offer ratio and 98% for
offer to arrival ratios which we are immensely proud of.

Despite the disruption caused by the pandemic Search Recruitment ensured the Trust was kept informed of project progress. Search Recruitment risk assessed and drew up contingency plans for nurse arrival during the pandemic. Regular meetings covered nurse progress with NMC stages and their planned arrival. Inevitably some nurse arrival were lost but Search Recruitment arranged more interviews etc., and recruitment/arrival targets were still met.