A brief guide to the NHS International Recruitment Toolkit

This toolkit is for colleagues involved in leading and delivering international recruitment in the NHS – it aims to encourage and enable good practices and processes for the recruitment of international staff across a wide range of professions

CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on NHS Employers

You can use the International Recruitment Toolkit to plan your approach to overseas recruitment activity for the first time, or to review the quality and efficiency of your existing practices and processes.

Here are the different sections the toolkit covers:

Planning

• Where to start
• People resource and cost
• Pastoral and professional support plan
• Immigration and professional registration
• Ethical practices
• Evaluation planning
• Building a business case

Preparing for recruitment

• Marketing your organisation
• Engaging existing staff
• Using a recruitment agency or service

Recruiting

• Interview and selection
• Language assessments
• Post-selection and pre-employment

Induction and beyond

• Welcome and induction
• Pastoral support
• Professional support
• Recruiting and retain

Evaluation

• What is your data telling you?
• Evaluation checklist

Overseas nurse and midwife recruitment

• UK professional registration
• Immigration requirements
• Recruitment timeline
• Pastoral self-assessment
• OOSCE preparation programme
• Ongoing professional support
• Community roles
• Useful information and resources

Overseas doctor recruitment

• UK professional registration
• Step-by-step process registration and immigration
• Recruitment timeline
• Pastoral and relocation support
• Professional development
• Useful information and resources

The toolkit is interactive and easy to navigate. Simply use the colour coded bars and subheadings at the top of each page to navigate around the toolkit.

The arrows at the bottom of each page will take you to the next or previous page and the home icon in the bottom right will bring you to this contents page. Look out for any underlined text to access useful resources and videos.