Guidance for agencies

Guidance for all agencies wishing to work with us.

Agency partnership terms

Our main priority is to provide the highest quality of care to our patients. To ensure that we achieve this priority we are firmly committed to using only agencies on our Preferred Supplier List and on an NHS approved framework, i.e. H T E or CCS / Workforce Alliance.

Unsolicited contact, visits, telephone calls, emails and CVs

We have a strict policy on unsolicited contact from recruitment agencies. Agencies must not contact any of our employees, including recruitment managers or departments, directly. We only permit agencies to have contact with our Agency Advisor or those authorised within the Temporary Staffing team to do so.

All recruitment is centralised and carried out by our Temporary Staffing team. For temporary agency cover requests and bookings, please contact our Agency Advisor and Temporary Staffing team only and not directly with consultants, clinical and non-clinical areas, wards, outpatient areas and / or departments.

Unsolicited phone calls and e-mails reflect poorly on agencies and are likely to mitigate against their inclusion on our preferred suppliers list. We apologise to high quality recruitment agencies for this approach, yet we receive an unacceptable level of unsolicited contact and must strictly apply this policy.

Unauthorised visits to our departments and making appointments on arrival at our sites is not permitted.

Should agencies arrive on site uninvited, our managers and employees are advised not to meet with them, but to politely re-direct them to the Temporary Staffing team. In addition, staff are advised to forward any agency contact and / or correspondence to the Temporary Staffing team. This ensures that the correct processes are followed and avoids staff being unnecessarily distracted from our core business of providing excellent care to patients.

Agency representatives must not tour the hospital looking for staff and / or agency workers.

Unsolicited CVs and candidate profiles / details

We have a commitment to sourcing candidates directly and as such we do not accept speculative CVs from agencies.

We do, however, work with a defined list of preferred Framework suppliers who may be invited to support us in sourcing candidates for particular roles.

In-line with our preferred supplier list, we only pay agency fees where we have a signed agreement in place and an agency has been instructed by our Agency Advisor or a member of our Temporary Staffing team.

We do not pay agency fees where speculative and unsolicited CVs are submitted to us or our employees by any other means than the official route above. Where this is not observed we reserve the right to contact these candidates directly and initiate discussions without payment of any agency fee.

Any candidate details (whether written or spoken) or CVs that are referred indirectly will not constitute an introduction. We will under no circumstances be responsible for any recruitment fees in relation to these contacts.

Submission of any unsolicited CVs, candidate’s details and/or proposals to us will not be considered further and will be deemed evidence of full and unlimited acceptance of the above agency protocol.

In order to establish and maintain good working relationships with our agency suppliers, we ask that this protocol is adhered to and thank you for your co-operation.

Any queries to the above or for any additional information please contact the Agency Advisor via the Resourcing Hub or the Temporary Staffing Team on 01803 653348.