Royal Papworth Hospital looking to recruit scores of nurses to new site

The Royal Papworth Hospital is launching a huge recruitment drive following its move to state of the art new premises on the Biomedical Campus.

The hospital moved from its Papworth Everard home at the end of April and since then they have hey have seen more than 5000 outpatients and carried out more than 1000 procedures.

But the loss of staff from the move compounded with the extra capacity at the new site means that more nurses and support workers are needed.

Chief Executive Stephen Posey told the Cambridge Independent: “The majority of staff made the move with us but we now have more capacity in the new hospital and so we need to expand our staff. We are not looking for doctors or consultants but registered nurses, physiologists and healthcare support workers.

“In terms of vacancies we have several score available across a whole range of professions.

“We have already received a record number of applicants to work at the new hospital over the last month but there is lots of opportunity.”

The hospital is running a recruitment day on Saturday, June 22 from 9am to 2pm. Stephen added: “We are offering interviews on the day and there will be an opportunity to meet the team of people they might be working with. You can walk straight into an interview so bring your CV!

“At Royal Papworth, we will train you and develop your skills – you don’t need to be highly qualified already to join us. You can start a career in healthcare from any background and we will support you and invest in your future career development. I am very proud that the culture which Royal Papworth is known for is flourishing in the new hospital – our staff are the key to this. It is their dedication, care and passion which has made this happen and we would be looking for people who could add to and flourish in this environment. You’ll be joining an amazing team who will support you throughout and enable you to deliver exceptional care to our patients.”

The hospital has moved to be alongside Addenbrooke’s Hospital, the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and AstraZeneca’s new global headquarters and research and development site. It will have 300 beds, five operating theatres, a critical care unit – and 1,800 members of staff.

The Papworth Everard site officially closed at the start of May, following the transfer by the East of England Ambulance Service and Amvale of 39 ward inpatients and nine critical care patients to the new hospital in just one day, rather than the scheduled three.

Stephen paid tribute to the teams who made this possible: “First of all I would like to say thank you to our colleagues at the east of england ambulance service who had planned to move patients over three days and the team managed to effect that move in one day it shows a huge level of commitment and care from hospital staff and the ambulance service that the patients were transferred into their rooms with no issues throughout the move. the royal papworth treats some of the sickest patients in the National Health Service and it was carried out very smoothly

It has gone extremely well. To move a hospital is a significant thing and it's been a long time in the planning it has gone exceptionally well thanks to our staff

“They are coping very well. They have been incredibly resilient - moving house takes a lot out of you, moving hospital even more so.”

He added that everyone appreciated the new site when the weather was bad. “This week we have been grateful to all be under one roof as at the old site we would be dodging the rain going in and out of different buildings,” he said.

Following the move, much of the equipment from the old hospital site has been donated to local schools and to medical charities abroad.

Items that were still useable and current were transferred to the new building on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, but thousands of items did not meet the required criteria for the move and remained at the site in Papworth Everard.

Some of that equipment has been sold at auction, the proceeds of which will benefit the Trust, but the majority has been donated to a variety of charitable causes, including the British Heart Foundation and London-based Better Lives Foundation.

Volunteers at Better Lives Foundation have transported nine van loads of furniture from Papworth Everard to their storage site in London. The donated items will ultimately be sent to the Yonibana Sai Hospital in Sierra Leone.

Yonibana Sai Hospital was built by the Foundation and is the only free hospital in the West African country. It is due to become a teaching hospital training post graduates.

Items that have been taken include drip stands, walking frames, wheelchairs, shelves, bedside tables and much more, and will help towards the hospital’s expansion plans which will include a neonatal and maternal building, radiology centre and pharmacy.

Phil Churchill, a cystic fibrosis patient at Royal Papworth Hospital, is responsible for putting the Trust in contact with the Better Lives Foundation.

“I was an inpatient at Royal Papworth earlier this year,” Phil recalled. “Whilst I was there, my friend, Ian Harvey, visited me. He is a biology teacher in Cambridge and often goes out to Sierra Leone to help train their teachers on how to develop practical biology lessons with hardly any equipment.

“When he was over there he went to Yonibana Sai Hospital and it was then that he encountered Better Lives Foundation. We started talking and it got me thinking about what was going to happen with the unwanted equipment at Royal Papworth’s old hospital. That’s when the link was formed and here we are today.”

Andrew Selby, Associate Director for Estates and Facilities at Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, added: “Whilst a significant number of items were taken with us to our new hospital site, there were plenty of objects that didn’t meet the requirements to be transferred but were still perfectly usable for someone else.

“We wanted to try to ensure that all the unwanted hospital furniture wasn’t just thoughtlessly thrown away. There have been almost 20 van loads that have been taken away from our site to be used by other organisations in the future, with hopefully more in the pipeline, so we are delighted that we have been able to help a variety of good causes in this way.”

Mike Taylor, Commercial Director at the British Heart Foundation, said: “We’re grateful for the hospital’s generous donations, helping cut down on waste and turning furniture into funds for new life-saving breakthroughs in the years to come.”

Papworth Hospital began life as a tuberculosis colony in 1918. The UK’s first successful heart transplant was carried out there in 1979 – and the world’s first successful heart, lung and liver transplant in 1986.

It was granted a royal title by the Queen in September 2017.