A Carlisle-based business is expanding due to the success of its mission to address NHS staffing shortages.
Set up in 2016 by Rachael Bagshaw, Just R has helped over 40 NHS trusts and healthcare organisations from transforming their recruitment function to hiring hard-to-fill roles, it says.
The Just R team has doubled in size in the last year – from six to 12.
Rachael expects the business to take on 10 more staff each year, over the next five years, as they develop longer term strategic partnerships with the NHS.
Rachael said its growth was based on new, industry-leading approaches which have helped the NHS find much-needed nurses and health care workers.
She added: “I set up Just R after learning of the NHS’s £3.2bn annual spend on temporary agency staff and its impact on retention, culture and patient safety.
“It was clear the traditional NHS recruitment model was broken and a new solution was needed.
“We want to help the NHS and healthcare organisations transform their people processes, so they’re more sustainable and effective – including how staff are brought on board and supported.
“I have a business solutions background, an insight into NHS care and a passion to solve this.”
The company said it had recruited 106 nurses over 12 months for the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, worked with NHS England, NHS Improvement and the London Procurement Partnership to reduce the 9,000 nursing vacancies in the city, filled 32 health care worker roles in Bradford and filled 300 positions at a new laboratory in Bracknell used for COVID-19 testing.
Rachael added: “Since the NHS was created in 1948, it’s never had enough nurses and there’s been an overreliance on students to solve the problem.
“Seventy years on the problem and the nursing shortfall is the same, around 44,000, nurses are urgently needed.
“We want the NHS to be the world’s healthcare employer of choice.
“I’m passionate about our mission and that we will be able to achieve this. And savings made can be diverted into better patient care and ultimately, save lives.”
The newly expanded Just R team plan to capture and use interviews with NHS staff to improve how they attract and retain staff.
