A total of £24,000 is coming to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King’s Lynn to help get more people from deprived backgrounds the chance to work in the NHS and social care in West Norfolk.
The hospital will develop a new plan for health and care partners to makes this happen against a background of low educational results and average earnings in the area.
Carly West-Burnham, Director of Strategy and Integration at QEH, is leading the initiative. She said: “This is funding to conduct new research and try new ways of working. With our partners, we will be mapping key workforce gaps that need addressing, the current recruitment entry routes, and how well we are doing at reaching the people we think could help fill those roles.
“Engaging with and understanding people’s experiences and views on health and care career pathways, finding out what the barriers are to them applying for and succeeding in those roles, and how we might be able to help will all be central to the project.
“We’ll also try and test some new approaches within those communities, to learn and inform future planning. As well as promoting aspiration and education, the programme will look to address long-standing challenges with recruitment to critical health and care roles locally.”