Healthcare Horizons
Organisation: Barts Health NHS Trust
Location: North East London ICB region– London boroughs: City of London and Hackney, Tower Hamlets, Newham and Waltham Forest
Size: 18k staff count across 5 hospitals
Populations served: 2.5M use Barts Health services
Healthcare Horizons Programme is an innovative widening participation programme aiming at increasing career awareness and reducing unemployment rates among young people within Barts’ local communities. The programme has been developed with the intention of delivering short and medium-term improvements in recruiting staff with focus on local recruitment, a key element to our vision to become an anchor institution.
By filling entry level jobs and apprenticeships with local people, we can support the development of a workforce that represents the community and its needs, and therefore contribute to service improvement and improved patient care.
The project team works with 37 secondary schools, colleges and a number of employment partners, and offers work experience, online mentoring, career events and a pre-employment training programme to young people, with a focus on those coming from under-privileged, under-represented and BAME backgrounds. In addition, the programme has recently implemented new and innovative ways of engaging local communities by developing an online virtual work experience platform and designing a new VR project.
Impact of the programme
The NHS is the largest employer in Britain and offers over 350 careers to choose from, but many young people find it challenging to start their career in the NHS due to poor career guidance and lack of employer- led engagement activities and opportunities. This is especially challenging for those who do not come from a background that has strong connections with health professionals.
The Trust also operates in areas of high deprivation, high unemployment rates and our communities have a higher than average population of young people who come from underprivileged backgrounds. Most schools within our catchment areas have a higher than average proportion of students on free school meals or/and for whom English is not their first language. Is it evident that young people face additional barriers when trying to access the labour market due to lack of knowledge of how to effectively access job information and how to apply for roles in the NHS. Limited or no previous work experience puts them at disadvantage when competing against more mature candidates at the application and interview stages.
Using the substantial leverage of the Trust in its anchor institution role the opportunity was taken to directly address these issues and tap into this potential employment pool.
The aim of the Healthcare Horizons programme is to address the determinants of health and engage school and college students in healthcare careers and to provide bridges to jobs and training.
At the same time, we were acutely aware of the need to connect with more excluded groups of young people to ensure that we were fulfilling our anchor mission to address inequalities in our East London communities.
Healthcare Horizons is crucial in ensuring high profile of our Trust among local communities and it helps address many of the workforce challenges the health sector faces e.g.:
• A high level of vacant posts, resulting in an increased reliance on temporary staffing and increasing costs and turnover rising following the pandemic
• An ageing workforce , meaning that a significant percentage of highly skilled and experienced staff are due to retire in the coming years
• A cost of living crisis that is adversely affecting low income and socially excluded households and communities
• Wage increases in other sectors, such as retail, which combined with rapid recruitment makes attracting young people to consider a career in the NHS more difficult.
An independent, external evaluation of Phase 1 of the project of individual components shows that these have increased the skills and knowledge of participants in relation to healthcare careers. At the start of the Pre-Employment Training, 38% stated that they either had high or good knowledge of career opportunities, 31% had little knowledge.
Towards the end of the training, 91% reported that they held either high or good knowledge of career opportunities and none of the participants reported low knowledge.
In addition, 98% of those taking part in a career event said that the event had given them a better understanding of working for the NHS and 96% reported that they understood more about the different jobs available in the health sector as a result of taking part.
A Social Return on Investment assessment of the Pre-Employment Programme was also conducted by the independent external evaluator. The assessment found a range of social impact on attendees such as teamwork skills, confidence, communication skills, improved mental and physical health as well as employment opportunities.
It was found that for every £1 invested in the Pre-Employment Training Programme, £3.30 was returned in social value.
How the programme was delivered
The programme of activities has been developed with an input from secondary schools, colleges, employment partners and young people to maximise the impact. Widespread support from existing staff was also needed to deliver initiatives such as work experience, mentoring and career events. The Trust has now an extended list of Career Ambassadors, Mentors and Supervisors engaging with the programme on regular basis. A robust communication plan and flexibility in how staff engages with the programme was a key factor in ensuring visibility of the programme and buy in from existing workforce.
Healthcare Horizons was also a key factor in the development of the Barts Health Futures Centre, a dedicated space at Newham College's Stratford campus that provides access to health careers and training. Having a designated area within one of the local colleges allowed us to extend our reach and to ensure that activities taking place there are employer-led.
What is the future of this programme?
The programme currently relies on external funding which places some restrictions on how it is being delivered. Although the Trust has made some progress in mainstreaming the programme, further investment is needed to ensure long term sustainability.
Implementation of a Youth Employment Scheme which focuses on rig-fencing entry level positions for local recruitment has been successful to some extent, however more work is required in developing clear career pathways for young people entering our workforce via increasing the number of available apprenticeships and progression routes for T-level students.
Advice for others doing similar work
Build strong rapport with local schools and colleges to maximise impact
Offer activities during school holidays to increase programme accessibility
Implement safeguarding measures
Offer different ways in which staff can engage: flexibility allows staff to support the programme around available time/resources and service needs
Buy in at a senior level is crucial
Offer training and support to ambassadors to ensure consistency and quality
Working with employment partners was crucial in pre-employment programme recruitment
Offer a qualification attached to your pre-employment training programme if possible and relevant
Students prefer varied and interactive activities. Design programme activities with students’ interest and age in mind and be creative
Use of technology removes some of the barriers associated with face-to-face interaction (for example using mentimeter allows all students to share their opinion anonymously)
Provide individual pastoral support post-training especially to those candidates who may be further from the job market and may need more tailored support
Collaborate with universities to offer students a greater insight into application processes to higher education and insight from existing university students
Include data collection period post project delivery to maximise the potential to capture all outcomes. This is especially important if you are to measure students progression into higher education or employment
Ongoing, regular evaluation of programme activities is crucial to ensure improved delivery. Collect feedback, evaluate and implement changes.
For more information about the programme:
Lead name: Agnieszka Wrobel
Contact email address: agnieszka.wrobel1@nhs.net