Student recruitment
Since 2015, Health Education England has expected Values Based Recruitment to be used to select the most appropriate workforce, from student selection through to the most senior appointments. NHS Values and the 6Cs from the Commissioning Board Chief Nursing Officer and Department of Health Chief Nursing Adviser together sum up the values that should shape these decisions.
Service users and carers should be involved in the process by which students are recruited (you may wish to check out the webpages on Student Assessment and Clinical Placements too, as these are also places where service users and carers are using their skills to assess students). The process you use to review your approach to student recruitment can also include service users and carers. Possible mechanisms for involving service users and carers in student recruitment include:
- attending sessions that introduce the learning provider to the candidates and explain their role
- undergoing training to develop their understanding of the process, selection criteria, equal opportunities considerations, decision-making and appeals processes
- taking part in a role-play of a patient interview that is then assessed by others. At King's College London, service users and carers have created a digital story that is used at one station in the multiple mini-interview (MMI) process
- joining the group that decides on selection criteria, observes sample interviews and suggests changes
- including in each selection panel one or more public contributors
- staffing one of the 'multiple mini interview' with public contributors. At King's, the person who appears on the digital story does not staff the station where it is used
- formally scoring candidates and having equal voting power to other panel members
- collecting and analysing data to find out what proportion of students met a service user/carer during their section process, how often the views of public contributors align with those of clinical or academic staff, what happens when there is disagreement, and whose assessment is the best predictor of career success
- being members of the panel that reviews the process by which students are recruited
Examples
- At the University of Wolverhampton, service users and staff attend annual training together on student selection
- At Teesside University and De Montfort University, service users and carers have helped to design interview questions and scenarios.
- At the University of Essex and the University of Southampton, service users and carers observe a group discussion and score individual candidates.
- At Birmingham City University, adults with learning disabilities shaped the interview questions and were then filmed asking them, so that applicants watched them on iPads and answered to camera.
- At De Montfort University and Edge Hill University, service users and carers who are part of a selection panel may adapt questions or add new questions spontaneously as the need arises in order to make a judgement against the clearly-defined selection criteria.
- At Anglia Ruskin University, service users and carers staff one of the stations in the multiple mini Interview circuit and then the scores from all the stations are aggregated.
- At Sheffield Hallam University and the University of Manchester, service users and carers are full members of the selection panel. The panel has a discussion and then awards a single score.
- At University Campus Suffolk, service users and carers are full members of the selection panel and submit their individual scores for aggregation to form the panel decision.
- At Birmingham City University, service users have helped with moderation of the student recruitment process.
- At Bucks New University, service users and carers joined academics in the panel that reviewed the process by which students were recruited and recommended changes.
- At the University of Hertfordshire, children from a primary school helped with the process of recruiting student nurses - read about it here.
- At Bournemouth University, service users and carers are engaged in the whole interview process of adult and mental health students nurses. They independently assess the candidates in both a group discussion and one-to-one interviews alongside academic and professional staff. Service users, along with academic and clinical staff then discuss the candidates and a group score is identified. Service users were also involved in the evaluation of this approach - see the report from SPA here.
