NCIC began actively recruiting overseas educated nurses and midwives in 2020. There were high nursing vacancy rates in the Trust and it was difficult to recruit locally due to the Trust’s location. Student nurses were being trained but wouldn’t be qualified until a later date when the need for qualified staff was immediate.
Initially the Trust recruited 37 nurses who arrived late in 2020, and by the time the international recruitment drive ended in 2024 over 400 overseas nurses and midwives had been inducted into the Trust. This significantly lowered the vacancy rate in the Trust to around 5% in 2023 meaning the Trust had its safest staffing levels in over 5 years.
The recruitment of overseas nurses also had a significant impact on the diversity of the staff population which led to an increase of around 2% each year from 2020. In 2024 the diversity of the staff population stood at 12.9% (WRES, 2024), which is 8.1% more than the recorded population diversity of Cumbria (4.8% (Cumbria Intelligence Observatory, 2022)). This means NCIC is the most diverse employer in the county.