Creating a brand to drive results for Buckinghamshire Healthcare

Buckinghamshire NHS Midwifery campaign, Midwife

Our recent work with Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust centred on the development of an employer brand focusing on two key areas of need: Midwifery and Neonatal Nursing.

Challenges

Proximity to London
Hard to fill vacancies
No dedicated recruitment social channels
The national shortage of Neonatal Nurses and Midwives

Just R’s Solution

Building an Employer Brand centred around themes of growth and connection
Developing the Trust’s Employer Value Proposition
Capturing the team in action
Building a dedicated social media page

Over 1 million

People Reached

180

Enquiries of Interest

Qualified Nurse Enquiries

Results

An audience of over 1 million people reached
180 enquiries of interest, including:
- 19 enquiries of interest from Qualified Nurses
- 3 enquiries of interest from Student Nurses
- 1 enquiry of interest from a Midwife
- 2 enquiries of interest from Student Midwives

Conclusion

While the production of an Employer Brand was incredibly important to Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, it is clear that a long term strategy is needed to drive the results the Trust needs, with the short campaign length a hinderance. The campaign allowed us to grow an audience for the Trust, and to build the basis of their Employer Value Proposition.

Buckinghamshire Campaign Maternity

Buckinghamshire Campaign Neonatal

Read more below

The two short campaigns ran in parallel, reaching an audience of over 1 million in less than 3 months. The results of which generated enquiries from over 180 candidates interested in working at the Trust, including 19 Qualified Nurses, 3 Student Nurses, 1 Qualified and 2 Student Midwives.

There were several challenges which have no doubt impacted the results of this project. These included:

Buckinghamshire’s proximity to London. Being so close to the Capital with all the associated living costs but outside the London weighting to support wages makes attracting midwives and neonatal nurses extremely challenging
The national shortage of neonatal nurses and midwives
The campaign was only 3 months long, this is the bare minimum time needed to penetrate an audience. It does not provide time for a campaign to mature

For comparative context, recent campaigns we have delivered for similar trusts in the North-West of England delivered over 20 qualified and student midwives within 2 weeks; a clear indication that bordering London’s increased pay grade is a struggle to compete with.

SAP Stoke Mandeville Maternity Neonatal

From our experience working with over 60 Trusts over the last 7 years, a long term campaign with an extended period of advertising allows for constant top of mind awareness, audience and SEO optimisations and consistent brand and messaging development to test what works best for the campaign.

Building an employer brand was incredibly important to Buckinghamshire, but it is a long term strategy which will drive the results they need.

It is clear to us from working with Buckinghamshire that they have a dedicated team and supportive leadership who back staff in their training and development – nurturing the talent within their teams. This is what they need to continuously celebrate in order to attract the people they need to join them.

Read more about the reasons why long-term, sustainable attraction strategies coupled with the development of a strong, bespoke employer brand are essential to future proof the NHS workforce here

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