Team UHMBT Welcomes 75 New Starters

University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust (UHMBT) welcomed 75 new faces this week, including 44 newly-qualified nurses and five newly-qualified Midwives.

As well as the new nurses and midwives, the Trust also welcomed a junior doctor, eight clinical healthcare apprentices, clinical support workers, and new colleagues for teams in Pharmacy, Catering, Domestic Services, Sterile Services, and Finance.

The new staff members were welcomed at the latest Corporate Induction – one of the largest ever held by the Trust – on Monday 18 September at Furness General Hospital.

Sue Smith, Executive Chief Nurse, UHMBT, opened the day by thanking them for choosing UHMBT for the next step in their career and giving them an outline of what they can expect working at the Trust. As well as the corporate mandatory training elements of the day, such as fire safety, infection prevention, health and safety, etc, new recruits were also given the opportunity to visit a market stall where various teams from across the Trust talked to them about their services and how they can support them in their working lives at UHMBT.

After the induction, Sue Smith said: “To welcome this number of staff in one day is absolutely fantastic – especially an impressive 44 nurses and five midwives! We have been working hard to recruit to many areas of the Trust and to see so many new faces in the room today is outstanding. There was a real buzz in the room and you could tell everyone was eager to get started!

“Caring for patients and their families during what is often a hard time in their lives can be demanding but it is an extremely fulfilling and rewarding career. It’s a job in which you can make a real difference to people’s lives in a positive way and I can tell the staff we had starting with us this week will fit into our hard working and caring teams perfectly.”

The new staff members will help to care for the residents of south Cumbria and north Lancashire, working across the Trust’s three hospitals: Furness General
Hospital, Westmorland General Hospital and the Royal Lancaster Infirmary.

Fiona Ducksbury recently graduated from the University of Central Lancashire and has joined the Trust as a Midwife at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary. She said: “I can’t wait to start working at UHMBT; it is really exciting to finally get started and to be doing something I love!”

The workforce and senior nursing teams at UHMBT work closely together to recruit staff in a number of different ways. To date, they have boosted staff levels by arranging recruitment fairs, launching a new online recruitment portal and visiting international locations including Greece, India and Cyprus to hold interviews. The teams’ recruitment campaigns help to highlight the unique opportunities available for health and care staff, both personally and professionally, that make south Cumbria and north Lancashire a great place to live and work.

Joann Morse, Deputy Chief Nurse, UHMBT, was part of the interview panel during a recent recruitment trip to the Philippines. She said: “We can, and do, recruit locally but there is a national shortage of nurses so we need to remain proactive in our approach. It is vitally important that we get our staffing levels right, so whilst we’re happy to welcome our new starters this week, we will be continuing to recruit more nurses, locally, nationally and internationally.”

More information on job vacancies at UHMBT and across the wider health and social care system in Lancashire and Cumbria can be found at: http://betterwithyou.co.uk/.