Innovative mental health and learning disability nursing recruitment

Key benefits and outcomes

• The trust recruited newly qualified nurses from across the country, helping to fill preceptee vacancies and strengthen the nursing workforce.
• The out-of-area campaign was successfully repeated in 2024 and 2025, building on the relationships and foundations established through the initial pilot.
• The trust created a new guaranteed Band 5 preceptee nurse post for students who complete their placements with the trust and successfully graduate.
• Relationships were built with higher education institutes beyond the local area, creating a pipeline that can be reactivated if nursing vacancies increase in future.
• The trust ensured a positive candidate journey from pre-interview support to post-recruitment career advice.
• Improved nursing retention and an increase in local graduating nurses have reduced the need to run the campaign this year, resulting in fewer preceptee vacancies across services.
• The trust increased the number of student nurses applying for posts by 144 per cent from 34 to 83 students during the initial campaign.
   

What the organisation faced

In 2023, the number of local student nurses from University of Leeds and Leeds Beckett University applying for the Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LYPFT) preceptorship programme was significantly less than the number of vacancies available. The trust’s estimated need was for 70 vacancies to be filled, but they only received 34 applications. This caused challenges for future workforce planning and could prevent LYPFT from meeting the needs of their service users in the future. The long-standing recruitment practice for newly qualified nurses needed to change to focus on attracting out-of-area newly qualified nurses.

What the organisation did

A collaborative out-of-area preceptee working group was created to identify all mental health and learning disability nursing courses across the UK. LYPFT define out of area as a student and university that does not already have a relationship with the trust in the immediate geographical area. 

To engage with third year students set to graduate, the trust built relationships with the graduate employment teams at higher education institutes (HEIs) which have sites across the country, ranging from Bradford, Birmingham, Hull, Huddersfield, Staffordshire, Sheffield, Kings College London, Scarborough, Manchester, Essex and Kingston.

These relationships supported additional promotion and marketing of events including recruitment and careers events, online meetings with careers advisors and information webinars for students. The events were advertised across universities’ intranets, websites, notice boards, and social media channels as well as externally.

A new generic preceptorship vacancy was created with an extended application period. This vacancy was left open for six months, compared to LYPFT’s typical two-week application period. This Band 5 preceptee post was a guaranteed position for students who completed their placements with the trust and successfully graduated.

The candidate journey

The objectives for the project were not limited to filling vacancies; LYPFT aimed to provide a positive candidate journey. During engagement activities, the trust had meaningful conversations with students to answer queries about career opportunities within LYPFT and the NHS. Furthermore, a free webinar was provided to support with interview techniques and to answer queries regarding the recruitment process. The webinar details were sent to the appropriate careers contacts at the universities to enable them to be promoted to student nurses.

Applications to the new preceptee vacancies were received in the usual way via Trac. They were then followed up with a request for the candidates first and second choice of service preference. Normally, LYPFT were able to accommodate most candidate’s requests, and when this was not possible, the recruitment team engaged directly and was able to negotiate a satisfactory result. Following the interview, candidates were given feedback and if they were not successful, support was provided to assist them with future interviews and subsequent careers with the NHS in the future.

Results and benefits

The trust increased the number of student nurses applying for posts by 144 per cent from 34 to 83 students and were able to offer positions to 63 candidates which allowed the trust to get close to the 70 that they thought they required.

The successful out of area candidates were sent a survey to dig deeper into why they chose the preceptorship programme at LYPFT, provide feedback on the recruitment process and advise the teams on areas of improvement.

Following the success of the initial pilot, LYPFT ran the out-of-area campaign again in 2024 and 2025, continuing to benefit from the relationships and foundations established with universities and careers teams beyond the Leeds area.

The trust has not needed to run the campaign this year due to significantly improved retention across the nursing profession and an increase in local graduating nurses. This has reduced the number of preceptee vacancies across services. While this is a positive development for workforce stability, it has also meant there has been less opportunity to continue growing the trust’s out-of-area graduate pipeline.

However, the relationships, learning and infrastructure developed through the campaign remain in place. If nursing vacancies increase again in future, LYPFT is well placed to step the programme back up quickly and re-engage out-of-area talent.

Takeaway tips for employers

1. Use workforce data to identify where local supply is unlikely to meet future demand and where a targeted out-of-area campaign could add value.
2. Build early relationships with university careers teams and course leads so opportunities can be promoted through trusted student channels.
3. Make the application process accessible by keeping vacancies open for longer, providing clear information about roles and offering support before interview.
4. Create a positive candidate journey by giving students opportunities to ask questions, understand career pathways and receive feedback after interview.
5. Develop a clear offer for newly qualified nurses, including preceptorship support, service preferences and information about living and working in the local area.
6. Keep relationships and campaign materials ready to reactivate quickly if vacancies increase, even when improved retention reduces immediate recruitment need.