Anyone know about NhS recruitment?

[MusicMagpie1977]

I was verbally offered a job last week over the telephone. Manager said she would start the ball rolling, etc, but that it would take a while with references, crb checks, but I still haven’t heard anything, they haven’t requested references, nothing in writing and nothing changed on trac.

Is this normal?

Bump

Yep it can take ages. HR aren’t the fastest at questing and forwarding information. On average I would say you would be looking at a start date roughly 5/6 weeks after interview.

Yes it can take a while. The longest it ever took me for one job to the next was 5 months!

Depends how long your employer takes to get sent the reference form then complete it and send it back. DBS is quicker these days, can take a couple of weeks. You should be sent the links to complete that in an email. It really just depends on how quick HR are, and from my experience, not very.

Have you had a job confirmation letter? The general advice is not to hand your notice in until that comes through.

Yes, sadly - it can be weeks or months between me offering someone the job and them starting. HR are not the fastest, but a lot of it is down to volume of work and the checks they have to do. I agree with @GreatCuppa - don’t hand in your notice until you’ve had your formal offer.

Congratulations on your new job!

Thank you!
i’ve not even had anything confirming offer in writing it was just verbal over the telephone but he did say he would start the process off and when everything is complete then to hand my notice in.

I had to let my current employer know as I have given them as a reference but they haven’t received anything yet.

No, you probably won’t get anything in writing for a while - it’s notoriously slow! (And massively frustrating for everyone)

And the NHS wonder why they cannot recruit!! It’s ridiculous that you are still waiting to get a written offer !!

Totally normal, we average about three months from offer to new person starting in my department 🙄

It depends on the departments recruitment contact, at least it does in my hospital. Each department has a named contact in the recruitment team who will organise all of the checks and issue contracts. It could be that that person is on leave and it hasn't been picked up by anyone else if they operate in a similar way to us. It can still take a very long time though It took me 3 months to start following my job offer for my current role and that was quite speedy because I was internal.

Normal I am afraid. I suggest you keep in regular contact with the manager who recruited you and you both chase recruitment! Also check your spam e-mail. We had a big delay because the occ health info went into someone's junk e-mail and no-one chased her to find out why she hadn't responded.

Yep NHS very slow, I have recent experience of recruitment in 2 different trusts.
A week isn’t long but I know it’s frustrating.

I agree with a pp about chasing both the recruitment department and the hiring manager - but it’s a fine balance between being a pain versus looking enthusiastic!

I recently changed roles and moved to a different Trust, some of the recruitment was efficient other parts took longer. Frustratingly I had to do a new dbs despite being signed up to the update service (which I pay for)
Occupational Health was another delay, my GP failed to supply my vaccination record so I ended up with MMR jabs and a Hep B antibody test…
then I had near identical conversations with 3 managers (long story) as one was moving on.

Thank you so much for replies.
I’m not in a rush to start new job but was just starting to worry as I hadn’t heard anything but it sounds like it normal for nhs recruitment

I was six weeks between job offer and getting a start date. I think it was delayed slightly by them not emailing me the OH form, but they were pretty quick to send it once I chased it up.

Some hiring managers know very little about Trac and they may have moved you to offer pending but not the vacancy - it is a two step process. Give the Trust’s recruitment team a call.

Thanks @Userengage

I don’t know much about the process but on trac nothing has changed - I’ll give HR a call later

Sorry to bump this thread up but I was just looking for some information. I've recently been offered a NHS role (classed as clinical, but won't actually be dealing with anything like blood, etc) and my GP is saying that I will probably need a course of Hep B immunisations. I have had them before but ended up with about 3 courses which didn't take and they ended up giving up. How did they do your course, did you have the accelerated course of 21 days? Did they make you wait to start until you had your 6 week check afterwards? Sorry for all the questions!

Yes normal. I gave up this time last year and took a non-NHS job instead.

@Babyroobs I have just done the same. I was offered a job and asked for them to confirm my salary as the banding salary varies by £7000. I was taking a slight pay drop so needed confirmation I wasn’t starting at the bottom of the banding. 9 weeks after the verbal offer and multiple emails I gave up and took a job in the private sector (which is almost double the NHS salary offered!)

Always takes months , NHS HR are notoriously slow.
My last job took nearly 5 months.

@Boobahs
in my Trust as part of the recruitment it is Occupational Health rather than GP who advises on this sort of thing.
Although if your GP has the record to confirm the hep B didn’t ‘take’ before then this may be helpful.
in your place I would probably ask the person at recruitment who has been dealing with you if you will be having an Occ Health appointment.
my limited understanding of the Hep B immunisation is that it doesn’t ‘take’ for everyone.
all the best in your new role.

Thank you for replying. Yes I have my face to Face ID check on Friday so I tried to obtain my medical records online but many of them from my old GPs were not transferred over 🙄 I keep getting emails from the recruitment team saying that if I don't send over my records before Fri that I won't be able to attend the meeting. I chased up my GP yesterday and the nurse has finally sorted it so I'm collecting them today, but she has said it's likely that I will need a course of Hep B and a tetanus as the minimum, but that OH normally sort that out. The reason I'm asking is that I'm being made redundant in Aug (from a school) and if I'm not sorted with the NHS job before May half term when I get my notice, there's a possibility that I might be able to get my redundancy package which I wasn't expecting to be able to do. I've seen that some people have the advanced course of Hep B (0, 7, 21 days) but wasn't sure if you then have to wait for the blood test 6 weeks later as well, or if they just do a blood test first to check your immunity. I guess I'll find out what they want to do on Fri.

can take months! I moved jobs within NHS last year to a new trust. Whole proess was ridiculously slow and inefficient. My advice would be to keep chasing everything, never assume they are getting on with doing what they need to do.I had to chase everything to get them to move through the process. No one had a clue what was happening at any point. I had to chase to get them to confrim offer, requesr references, send off dbs and arrange start date. 3 weeks after I started in the job I got an email form HR asking if I wanted to agree a start date for the job - this was 4 1/2 months after being offered the job!! I emailed to tell them I had started 3 weeks ago (all arranged through HR of course)and they seemed quite suprised - this did also though manage to flag up I hadnt been set up on payrol and so wouldnt get paid for the first month!! Never known anything quite so hopeless as tryin to start a job in the NHS.

Yep, it was 5 months from job offer to start date. They're so, so slow.