Winners of the 2024 Nursing Times Workforce Awards Announced

SWFT Education, learning and workforce development team has been announced as the deserving winner of the ‘Best Recruitment Experience’ category at the Nursing Times Workforce Awards 2024.

On Thursday 28 November, Nursing Times brought together over 700 professionals from across the health and social care community to highlight nursing’s workforce achievements.

Now in their seventh year, the Nursing Times Workforce Awards are an annual celebration of the nurses, midwives and employers making a real difference in key areas such as staff recruitment, retention, wellbeing and inclusion.

Finalists and members of the nursing community attended a glittering awards ceremony at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London where the winners of 18 categories were revealed, covering individuals, teams and employers. There were deserving winners from organisations across the UK.

The Nursing Times Workforce Awards recognises those going the extra mile when trying to attract nursing staff and, just as importantly, celebrates efforts to retain and support staff. The event also recognises some of the great work being done in improving equality, diversity and inclusion within the nursing and midwifery workforce, and also the growing role of nurses and midwives in leading the development and adoption of digital technology in health and social care.

Following a rigorous judging process, SWFT Education, learning and workforce development team emerged as the winner of Best Recruitment Experience for their work on the project: ‘Explore Nursing’ girl guide challenge badge.

“In June 2023, NHS England reported a vacancy rate of 10.6% (43,339 vacancies). As part of the NextGen Nurse Programme work stream, we developed a Girl Guide Badge that is available for completion by 300K active Girlguide members in the UK with a further 56,882 on the waiting list. Future plans include Scouts with over 400,000 members in the UK and Schools/Duke of Edinburgh award. Challenges included capacity, developing a badge with age applicable tasks, engagement from local units and funding. I am still collating data but initial outcomes show a 150% increase in interest in a career in Nursing.“

Editor of Nursing Times and the host of the awards, Steve Ford said:

“I want to congratulate all the winners across our 18 categories at the Nursing Times Workforce Awards 2024, now in their seventh year. Once again, we have shone a light on the people, teams and organisations going the extra mile to attract and retain our vital nursing workforce.”

Brilliant work is being carried out by nursing and midwifery staff, despite what continues to be an incredibly tough time for the NHS and the health and social care sectors in general.

We have an ongoing workforce crisis, which has now entered a new phase. Previously there were too few nurses to fill vacancies, currently many employers can’t afford to fill posts. So we find ourselves with the paradox of having too few nurses while those we do have cannot find jobs.

But these awards are about sharing some of the great innovation and efforts around the country, be it on nurse recruitment, retention, staff wellbeing or supporting those early in their careers. All of these are vital parts of the solution to the workforce challenge.”

You can find the full list of winners from the awards here.