The international recruitment team at County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust (CDDFT) has been awarded the NHS Pastoral Care Quality Award as part of NHS England International Recruitment Programme.

The award recognises commitment to providing high-quality pastoral care and the positive impact this has on staff wellbeing. The number one priority for embedding new people into the NHS is to provide safe onboarding, induction and pastoral support for new international recruits.

Here at CDDFT, the aim of the international recruitment team is to facilitate the arrival of internationally trained nurses to the UK and ensure that they are housed and have everything they need to begin their work in the Trust.

Our international recruitment team also offers an onboarding package which includes picking the nurses up from the airport on their arrival, helping them settle into their accommodation and opening bank accounts, collecting biometric passports and registering with GP as well as lots of support from our dedicated Chaplaincy team.

Noel Scanlon Executive Director of Nursing and Patient Experience at CDDFT said: “We are absolutely delighted our international recruitment team has been recognised for their ongoing dedication and hard work to support our international nurses and most recently midwives.

“International nurses and midwives are an integral part of the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust team and to be awarded the Pastoral Care Award is a fantastic achievement and demonstrates our commitment to our greatest asset, our people. Well done everyone.

“Our priority is to make sure the process is as easy as possible as they make the incredibly challenging move to a new country and start a new job and provide as much support as we can to make this transition as smooth as it can be.”

As part of the award, there are three sections where evidence is required to demonstrate that pastoral care is embedded and considered an integral part of supporting internationally educated staff.  These sections are around pre-arrival, arrival and induction to the NMC (The Nursing and Midwifery Council) register.

Chithira Sreenivasan is a nurse originally from India who arrived in the UK in February 2021 and is now a band 6 Clinical Nurse Educator within the Practice Education Team at CDDFT.

Speaking about the support she received from the international recruitment team she said: “Since the beginning the support providing by the international recruitment team, OSCE (Objective Structured Clinical Examination team), accommodation team, workforce services, pension and payroll teams has all been commendable.

“The OSCE team were amazing, inbetween all COVID restrictions they were able to give us OSCE Training and all other mandatory training and made us most comfortable since the day of arrival.

“I have various career opportunities to face in the future and I am more than confident I can achieve this with County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust whom I can count on as a pro-active and career-driven organisation.”

Congratulations to the international recruitment team for this award.