Recruitment And Selection Policy For Nursing Staff At The NHS Trust

You have been asked by the board, to design a recruitment strategy which recruits and selects  appropriate personnel for a key operational posts within the organisation.

1.Choose a post(s) that is relevant to the Case study above

2.Prepare a recruitment and person selection policy for the post.

3.Write a strategy in the form of a proposal  on your planning process that:

4.Explains the factors that you considered when planning the recruitment of an individual to fill the post.

5.Explains how relevant legislative and policy frameworks in England influence the selection, recruitment and employment of individuals

6.Evaluates different approaches that may be used to ensure the selection of the best individuals for work in health and social care

7.Explains ways in which the performance of the individual can be monitored

8.Assesses how the  individual training and development needs can be identified

9.Analyses different strategies for promoting the continuing development of individuals in the health and social care workplace

To achieve M2 you will need to show that you have selected a range of methods and techniques to recruit and select the correct candidate for the job and justified these in your proposal

To achieve D1 your strategy document for the individual will indicate how the individual can be monitored and developed against The Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF)

You have been asked to carry out two short role plays in groups and write two reflective accounts based on Gibbs reflective Cycle (1998). You should also keep all group contributions and minutes.

The first role play will need to use Belbin Theory to

• Explain theories of how individuals interact in groups in relation to the types of teams that work in health and social care.
• Evaluate approaches that may be used to develop effective team working in health and social care.

To do this, in your groups you will have the materials to complete a practical task.  Your role play will reflect the different types of group approaches theorised by Belbin and this should be applied within this task.

Factors considered in recruitment

Policy statement- The NHS trust is committed to follow fair and relevant legislation for the purpose of recruitment and selection of right staff with right skills needed for health service at the Trust. The recruitment manager has the responsibility for monitoring the compliance and effectiveness of the policy. The objective of the recruitment and selection process is to recruit talented nursing staffs with best expertise to fill vacant positions and ensure transparency in the process.

• Analysis of vacant position- The HR manager will review the vacant position that needs to be filled up and forward the job description and post specification to the recruitment team at NHS.
• Advertising- The advertisement for the post with updated job description, skill and knowledge specification will be advertised in relevant advertising media.
• Shortlisting- After receiving the application form from desired candidate in response to the job advertisement, the candidates will be shortlisted on the basis of skills and knowledge and person specification for the post. After complete evaluation of candidate detail, they will be called for interview (Pashayan et al. 2016).
• Interviewing- Additional methods of selection along with interview will be followed in this stages and they will questioned according to the demands of nursing job position to judge their motivation and skills for the job.
• Appointment- The final appointment process will include health assessment and following relevant policy and process for appointment of candidates in health service (Cerinus and Shannon 2014).

The above recruitment is a glimpse of the purpose of the policy and the process that will be followed for recruitment and selection of nurses at the NHS. This section gives detail on the factors that will be considered for the recruitment of nurses in the vacant position. The first step will be to identify the shortage of nurse in day and night shift. Secondly, the planning process will depend on the overall aim of recruitment and the core objectives of the organization (July and Trust 2016). Based on this evaluation, the capabilities and skills of the nurses will be analysed. The aim of NHS trust is to provide safe and quality healthcare to all and meet the clinical needs of patients at the point of delivery (The principles and values of the NHS in England - NHS Choices 2017). Hence, the most important factor for recruitment will be to judge the clinical skill, knowledge, qualification, past experience in care and attitude and behavior of nurses who will be filling the position. The competency of the nurse can be evaluated by certain competency tools and questionnaire to test their clinical knowledge as well as attitude towards nursing job. The competency will be evaluated by means of Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF), nursing practice standards in UK and Quality Assurance Agency benchmark. On this basis, core clinical skills, clinical judgment and core clinical skills of nurses can be effectively interpreted (Newton et al. 2015). This will ensure that competent nurses with efficient personal characteristics, clinical skills and nurses with values of compassion, commitment and communication engage in care of patients (Waugh et al.  2014).

Another important part of the planning process for recruitment is to ensure that all relevant legislative and policy framework for recruitment in England is adequately followed. This will ensure that equal rights and opportunities is given to all candidates in employment. Discrimination during recruitment and selection process will protected by complying with the Equality Act 2010, Employment Act 2008 and the Employment Policy and Legislation Employment Relations Act 2004 and the Data Protection Act 1998. The Equality Act 2010 is a legal framework to prevent discrimination and support equality. This Act will protect against the discrimination on the basis of age, disability, gender, race, marriage, sex and pregnancy (Johns et al. 2014). Secondly, recruitment process involves collecting certain data of candidates and the Data Protection Act 1988 will ensure the confidentiality of the data (Thomas 2015). While planning recruitment process in England, it is also important to comply with Employment Act 2008. This is because it addresses the conflict resolution issue in employment and it will ensure that nurses get the minimum wage and standards of employment while working at NHS. All steps will be taken to ensure that justice and parity in selection prevails (Bradley and Healy, 2008). The employment method will also be enhanced by the Employment Policy and Legislation Employment Relations Act 2004.

Compliance with legislation

The selection of the best individual in the desired position is dependent on the selection criteria for that position. To evaluate the suitability of candidate for the nursing job at NHS trust, the selection criteria will consider the following:

• What skills, knowledge, qualification and experience does the nurse need to work in the position of nursing?
• What values the nurse must have to work according to the culture and objective of NHS?
• Does any characteristic prohibits candidate from a job in this position?

On the basis of the above selection criteria, the nurse will require clinical, caring, listening and communication and clinical judgment skills. They also need to be have the commitment towards care to promote flexibility in the job and work longer when required (Rankin 2013). The presence of all this skill can be evaluated during the interview stage to identify the strength and drawbacks of the candidate. Secondly, selection of best candidate will be done by means of structure psychometric assessment, behavioural evaluation and hypothetical questioning testing of nurse. This will give the idea whether the nurses are prepared and suitable for the job or not (Brouwer et al. 2014).

After addressing the staffing issues at NHS by recruiting competent nurses, it will be necessary to manage the performance of nurse and promote continued development in professional work. The performance of the individual nurse will be monitored by applying the Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF) for the NHS. The KFS framework of NHS consists of the five core dimension of-

1. Personal and people development
2. Health, safety and security
3. Service improvement
4. Quality
5. Equality and diversity (The NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework 2017)

To monitor the progress and performance of newly recruited nurse, identifying the dimension that fit into the nursing post is important. For nurse, the most important priority is health and safety of patients and delivering high quality care. Therefore, the KSF dimension of 1, 2 and 5 will be suitable for nurse.  In the area of communication, the performance appraisal process will monitor whether nurses possess all forms of communication skills such as that of listening, communication details to patients and ways of breaking bad news to patients or communicating with difficult patients. This is important as it is reflective of compassionate and high quality nursing care and lead to better patient satisfaction with care (Arnold and Boggs 2015). In the area of health, security and safety, the focus  will be on evaluating whether nurse promote this aspect through the work at NHS or not. It may involve small task like handling patients, interacting with new patients, handling equipment, collaborating with colleagues and passing vital health information to health care team. Evaluation in this area will help to identify physical, psychological, social and environment risk present in the organization (Halcomb et al. 2016). The purpose will be to identify work related stress and other discrimantion during nursing practice. Finally the nurse ability to maintain high quality in their work be analysed by seeing their compliance with clinical protocols.

Selection criteria for nursing staff

The training and development needs of nurses can be identified by monitoring number of incidence of medical errors or critical events when the nurse was assigned to specific patients. Secondly, taking the feedback from patients regarding the satisfaction with care under specific nurse will also help to identify area of improvement. As productivity and quality of services is important in NHS, training needs assessment will help to determine which nursed need training and in which areas (Devi and Rao 2012). Following specific performance appraisal format for nursing staff may also help to identify weak areas of individual nurses. Based on this evaluation, the training needs and development of nurses can be identified and strategies for continued development of nurses can be implemented. They will be given intensive learning and training on weak areas. Secondly, with the focus to expand the knowledge of nurse in their specialty, regular discussion board will be arranged to update them about latest development in the field. E-learning courses and short to long term training programmes may facilitate professional development of nurses (Pool et al. 2013).

Description- A role play was done with small groups of nurses and physicians (5 members) and they were given task related team work skills in health and social care. It was related to infection outbreak in health care and how the interprofessional team responded to the issue

Feelings- This role play was planned because team work is critical for care and safety of patients. Better coordination between interprofessional team helps to work in the same direction and provide the best quality care to patients. According to Belbin team role theories, each person has specific pattern of behaviour in relation to another that facilitate the progress of team (Eubanks et al. 2016). Hence, in the role play, identifying individual attitude toward care is important to facilitate interprofessional team work.

Evaluation: The role play helped to observe different characteristics of team and whether they could succeed or not. The team was analysed on the basis of nine different behaviour exhibited by a team as mentioned by Belbin. This included resource investigator, teamworker, coordinator, plant, monitor evaluator, specialist, shaper, implementer and completer finisher. This identification of behaviours in each individual will determine how they contribute to team work.

Analysis- The evaluation showed that two members has team worker characteristics as they showed great flexibility in adapting to difficult situations. They will promote unity and harmony within the team. The other member showed resource investigator characteristics as they were good communicators and explored new opportunities to build contact with patients (Meslec and Cur?eu 2015).

Monitoring individual performance

Conclusion: The role play on team work in health and social care on the basis of Belbin team role theory helped to evaluate the individual behaviour of team members.

Action plan- The action plan is to overcome the weakness of team members with resource investigator characteristics as they may lose focus in work under high pressure. This will create risk in delivery of care. Secondly, strategies will be planned to make team members efficient decision makers.

Description- This role play was done with one social care worker and one health care worker. The objective of the role play was to teach leadership skill according to context of practice and relevant leadership theories.

Feeling- The evaluation of the leadership skill of participants was done by means of the contingency theory of leadership. According to this theory, there is no single way of leading and leadership style should be based on certain situations (Chemers 2014).

Evaluation- With the assumptions of the contingency theory, the leadership skill for a health care worker and social care worker will differ. This is because health care worker are involved in dealing with clinical issues at workplace whereas social care workers need to have adaptability skills to manage resource and solve social and health issues of client.

Analysis- In line with the contingency theory, the health care workers was told to manage their work by balancing the changes in medical service along with new demands to get the desired outcome in care (Saha 2016). Secondly, social care work leaders were taught the skill of managing their work by being more creative and showing management level skills to improve service.

Conclusion- The experience from this role play helped me in my own personal and professional development. This happed after I got idea about the Contingency theory, which emphasized on adapting different leadership style according to the demand of the situation. This will help me in planning my strategies according to graveness of situation in workplace.

Action plan- The future action plan is to strengthen my leadership skill by working on specific traits required in managing health and social care service.

References

Arnold, E.C. and Boggs, K.U., 2015. Interpersonal relationships: Professional communication skills for nurses. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Bradley, H. and Healy, G., 2008. Ethnicity and gender at work: inequalities, careers and employment relations. Springer.

Brouwer, B.J.M., Kaljouw, M.J., Kramer, M., Schmalenberg, C. and Achterberg, T.V., 2014. Measuring the nursing work environment: translation and psychometric evaluation of the Essentials of Magnetism. International nursing review, 61(1), pp.99-108.

Identification of training and development needs

Cerinus, M. and Shannon, M., 2014. Improving staff selection processes. Nursing Standard, 29(10), pp.37-44.

Chemers, M., 2014. An integrative theory of leadership. Psychology Press.

Devi, V.R. and Rao, M., 2012. Training needs identification of nursing staff–A case study of a health care organization. EXCEL International Journal of Multidisciplinary Management Studies, 2(5), pp.147-153.

Eubanks, D.L., Palanski, M., Olabisi, J., Joinson, A. and Dove, J., 2016. Team dynamics in virtual, partially distributed teams: optimal role fulfillment. Computers in Human Behavior, 61, pp.556-568.

Halcomb, E., Stephens, M., Bryce, J., Foley, E. and Ashley, C., 2016. Nursing competency standards in primary health care: an integrative review. Journal of clinical nursing, 25(9-10), pp.1193-1205.

Johns, N., MacBride-Stewart, S., Powell, M. and Green, A., 2014. When is positive action not positive action? Exploring the conceptual meaning and implications of the tie-break criterion in the UK Equality Act 2010. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 33(1), pp.97-113.

July, I. and Trust, H.Q., 2016. Recruitment and Selection Policy. Policy.

Meslec, N. and Cur?eu, P.L., 2015. Are balanced groups better? Belbin roles in collaborative learning groups. Learning and Individual Differences, 39, pp.81-88.

Newton, P., Chandler, V., Morris?Thomson, T., Sayer, J. and Burke, L., 2015. Exploring selection and recruitment processes for newly qualified nurses: a sequential?explanatory mixed?method study. Journal of advanced nursing, 71(1), pp.54-64.

Pashayan, N., Gray, S., Duff, C., Parkes, J., Williams, D., Patterson, F., Koczwara, A., Fisher, G. and Mason, B.W., 2016. Evaluation of recruitment and selection for specialty training in public health: interim results of a prospective cohort study to measure the predictive validity of the selection process. Journal of Public Health, 38(2), pp.e194-e200.

Pool, I., Poell, R. and ten Cate, O., 2013. Nurses’ and managers’ perceptions of continuing professional development for older and younger nurses: a focus group study. International journal of nursing studies, 50(1), pp.34-43.

Rankin, B., 2013. Emotional intelligence: enhancing values?based practice and compassionate care in nursing. Journal of advanced nursing, 69(12), pp.2717-2725.

Saha, J.B., 2016. LEADERSHIP IN HEALTH CARE. Journal of Comprehensive Health January, 4(1), p.4.

The NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework – (2017).  A short guide to KSF dimensions. [online] Available at: https://www.msg.scot.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/Short-Guide-to-KSF-Dimensions.pdf [Accessed 28 May 2017].

The principles and values of the NHS in England - NHS Choices. (2017).  Nhs.uk. [online] Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/thenhs/about/Pages/nhscoreprinciples.aspx [Accessed 28 May 2017].

Thomas, J.A., 2015. Using unstructured diaries for primary data collection. Nurse researcher, 22(5), pp.25-29.

Waugh, A., Smith, D., Horsburgh, D. and Gray, M., 2014. Towards a values-based person specification for recruitment of compassionate nursing and midwifery candidates: a study of registered and student nurses' and midwives' perceptions of prerequisite attributes and key skills. Nurse education today, 34(9), pp.1190-1195.