Our Candidate Essentials Guide
Welcome
Welcome to our Candidate Essentials Guide. We’re delighted you’re interested in joining us. We’ve put together a range of important information which we hope you’ll find useful in helping you make an informed decision as to why Frimley Health NHS Trust is going to be your next and best career move.
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust (FHFT) has an outstanding reputation and a proud record of achievement. As well as being a performing, well led and ambitious Foundation Trust, we have exciting times ahead of us. The Trust’s vision is to lead in delivering exceptional health and well being services to our communities. Turning our vision into reality, we are continuing to make significant investments in our infrastructure and facilities, striving for excellence and empowering our people to deliver excellence.
Providing a supportive, dynamic MDT working environment, allowing our teams to deliver high quality patient care and achieving work life balance. We champion collaborative working and a culture of continuous improvement, encouraging our staff to pursue their most ambitious goals.
Join us and you will have the opportunity to work with some of the best people in the NHS and thrive in an organisation united in its values, purpose and commitment to our patients and a drive for continual innovation and improvement.
Our Locations
Frimley Health Foundation Trust covers three hospital sites: Frimley Park in Camberley, Wexham Park in Slough, and Heatherwood in Ascot. In addition to our 3 main hospitals, we provide integrated community services to north east Hampshire, Farnham and Surrey Heath in partnership with Virgin Care Services. Including outpatient and diagnostic services and clinics offered across Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire.
Frimley Park
Located in Surrey, close to the Hampshire and Berkshire borders. The hospital is located in Frimley just a mile south of Camberley.
Wexham Park
Located west of London (north of Slough). Wexham Park Hospital is around two miles north of Slough town centre.
Heatherwood
https://careers.fhft.nhs.uk/hospitals-locations/
Located in Berkshire, close to Bracknell, Heatherwood hospital is less than one mile west of Ascot and three miles east of Bracknell Town Centre. Further information regarding transport links can be found here:
Our Benefits
Frimley Health Foundation Trust prides itself on its wide range of extra benefits and services on offer to employees, in addition to your salary. These benefits are available to all our staff members to ensure a good work life balance can be achieved and therefore you, and our patients, can have a positive and constructive experience. Play the video to find out more about the benefits on offer.
Wellbeing
At Frimley Health the wellbeing of staff comes as top priority. That is why 'Supporting our People' was chosen as one of our key strategic ambitions, to help us deliver on our vision of being a leader in health and wellbeing, providing exceptional services for our communities. We have an array of resources and initiatives on offer to ensure support for all kinds of needs are available, for example: mental health first aiders, 24/7 helplines, new policies like the flexible working policy, etc. For more information , visit the Health & Wellbeing benefits dropdown on our careers website: https://careers.fhft.nhs.uk/benefits/#1708524988220-04b88d95-21c5
Our Trust
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust provides NHS hospital services for around 900,000 people across Berkshire, Hampshire, Surrey and South Buckinghamshire and employ around 14,000 members of staff.
We are also proud to host the Defence Medical Group South East at Frimley Park with military surgical, medical and nursing personnel working alongside the hospital's NHS staff providing care to patients in all specialties.
We continue to invest in our services and facilities, including a £25 million state-of-the-art NHS diagnostic centre (CDC) is planned for Slough in 2025 and following the success that Frimley Park Hospital has been included in the government's new hospital programme. This will see us building a cutting-edge replacement for the current hospital for 2030.
As a Foundation Trust we are accountable to our local community. This means local people, patients and staff can have a real say in how the Trust is run and with over 24,000 foundation trust members representing patients, partners, and staff, we make sure we stay connected to what is important to you.
Our Trust
We aim to ensure people reach their full potential within their job roles, as such, we will invest in your career and help you to achieve further training and qualifications. We are keen to listen to our staff and are committed to making sure they are involved with decision making around service delivery, improvements and innovations.
Our Vision and Values
Our vision is to be a leader in health and wellbeing, delivering exceptional services for our communities. Our values guide everything we do to achieve this vision, now, and in the future, and set out what is expected from each and every member of the team in the way they treat patients, visitors and colleagues.
in everything we do, striving to be one of the best acute trusts in the country.
as one team dedicated to meeting patient needs.
continuously improving our performance and adapting services to meet demand.
Click the link to find out more about the Trust's 2020/25 strategy: https://careers.fhft.nhs.uk/vision-values-strategy/
The Application Process
• Before applying, it’s important to read the Job Description and Person Specification for the role you’re interested in and decide if your qualifications, skills and experience are well suited for the requirements.
• Be sure to include a full account of your professional working history and educational achievements.
• Remember, most person specifications have a series of ‘essential criteria’ that hiring managers will look at to determine appropriate candidates, but also, if you try to demonstrate how you match the ‘desirable criteria’, that’s what will help you stand apart from other applicants.
• Once you have submitted your application form, this will then be shortlisted by the recruiting panel.
• All application forms received by the Trust are shortlisted in exactly the same way by using the person specification in order to score your application.
• The highest scoring candidates will then be invited to interview.
• If you have been successfully shortlisted, you will then be invited for an interview. Depending on the nature of the role, this may take place as a panel interview, or an assessment centre could be held.
• Both processes could involve multiple assessments of your capabilities from both a competency point of view – your skills, and from a behavioural point of view – your values-based behaviours.
• The purpose of the interview is to ensure we can identify the right skills and behaviours for the role which will ultimately be for the benefit of our patients and organisation.
• Congratulations on your appointment!
• If you have been successful at interview, you will be formally offered the role on a conditional basis. This means that you will need to be cleared through the Trust employment checks.
Application Information
Closing Vacancies Early Spam/Junk Folder
Just so you're aware, on occassions, we may decide to close a job vacancy earlier than the published closing date if we've recieved sufficient applications. Please bear this in mind and therefore aim to apply for the role as soon as you can to avoid missing out on the opportunity.
In order to keep on track of your application, its important to regularly review the email account (including your junk/spam folders) from which you have applied as we'll use this to contact you regarding your status.
Special Requirements Certificate of Sponsorship
As an inclusive employer we're here to support you. If therefore you have any special reqirements that will enable to to participate in our recruitment process, simply contact a member of the Recruitment team by emailing fhft.recruitment@nhs.net at the earliest opportunity. This will help us to ensure that measures can be put in place to enable your application.
In the event you don't have an existing right to work in the UK and the role you're applying for is eligable for the provision of a 'Health &Care worker visa', FHFT have a licence to issue you a Certificate of Sponsorship, should you be successfully appointed. The maximum period the Trust will sponsor any applicant through this process is 5 years, whilst the maximum period on a Health Care visa is 10 years.
Supporting Armed Forces
Frimley Health NHS Trust is committed to upholding the principles of the Armed Forces Covenant. Due to our commitment to the armed forces community within our hospitals, we now have been awarded Gold Accreditation through the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS), meaning we offer a ‘Guaranteed Interview’ to members of The Armed Forces Community that meet the requirements of the job, and also offer an additional 2 weeks leave for those with Reservist commitments.
Frimley Park, Wexham Park and Heatherwood are also proud to be ‘Veteran Aware’ hospitals. This means:
• We strive to be an exemplar of the best care for veterans and their families.
• We encourage all patients to let us know if they have ever served in the UK armed forces so that we can best support their care needs.
• We are committed to learning from our patients and their families in order to improve quality of care.
Our commitment to the covenant means that the armed forces community should not face any disadvantage compared to other citizens in the provision of healthcare and that special consideration is appropriate in some cases, especially for those who have given the most. We are in a unique position of having the Joint Hospital Group (South East) (JHGSE) based at Frimley Park Hospital. Not all hospitals have regular military personnel fully integrated into their services, but we do, working alongside our NHS colleagues in many departments.
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
One Team, many nationalities...
Frimley Health serves multiple diverse communities that live in, Slough, Ascot and Camberley, Aldershot, Farnham and Windsor. The greatest asset we have, in helping us serve these communities, is the diversity of our people. We are proud of our globally diverse workforce; all committed to providing exceptional care as part of the Frimley family:
Our EDI Strategy complements our work on the NHS England High Impact Actions, and has three headline areas:
WORKFORCE REPRESENTATION
STRATEGY
AMPLIFYING DIVERSE VOICES
ADVANCING EQUALITY
Our People Networks
We currently have x6 People Networks, as part of the Amplifying Diverse Voices segment of our EDI strategy.
Race Equality Diversity Network
The most evolved of our People Networks this Network is focussed on delivering against: Vision Statement
The Race, Equality and Diversity (RED) Network aims to support and empower FHFT staff of a global majority background to achieve their full potential. Aims
• Ensure recruitment processes are inclusive- from advert to appointment.
• Network members have access to support and resources that facilitate career progression, leadership skills and increasing confidence.
• ‘You can’t be what you can’t see/dream.’ To shine a spotlight on global majority staff in senior roles.
• Raise awareness of the RED network to grow membership and ensure we have representation across the board in terms of banding, profession, and directorate.
Women of the World
The Women of the World Network is dedicated to supporting and empowering women from all walks of life. The network Launched in March 2022 in celebration of International Women’s Day, and the name was chosen by the network members. The Network aims for women to
• connect with each other
• have discussions around issues important to them and
• meet other women from a variety of roles within the Trust.
Women in Leadership
Launched in Spring 2024, our Women in Leadership Network was launched by x2 of our consultants wanting to inspire and support the Leaders of tomorrow.
The Rainbow Network
The Rainbow Network was set up for our LGBTQ+ community and requires our continued investment. Key achievements made by the Network include
• Launching a LGBTQ+ Charter.
• Hosting a speaker series with the Network sponsors
The EDI team has worked hard to send signals to the community about our commitment to LGBTQ+ equality. This has included:
• Mounting the Rainbow flag, hanging Rainbow bunting and displaying Rainbow bollards to signal our solidarity
• Hosting Rainbow Network events
• Organising Rainbow displays across each site
• Working with Radio Frimley to promote PRIDE
• Dedicated speaker series sessions
In January 2024, the NeuroInclusion Task Force was established to leverage the expertise of neurodivergent employees to enhance Trust-wide accessibility. Collaborating with Organisational Development, the Task Force developed facilitator guidelines for accessible learning at FHFT. Sixty employees from diverse fields contributed by refining training instructions, evaluating pilot sessions, revising the Appraisal Policy, and creating a NeuroInclusion Padlet for neurodiversity education.
Disability & Carers Network
The Disability and Carers Network creates knowledge and networking opportunities by offering peer support and working with the Trust on key policy changes to promote equality.
Staff Bank
Joining the Staff Bank is a fantastic way to enhance your earnings and your skillset. This is great for those who cannot commit to a regular pattern of working or those who find it difficult to find posts with the hours and times to suit them.
How to Join the bank?
The Bank is made up of a mixture of substantive staff members who want to work extra shifts, or external people who only want to work bank shifts.
Why Join the
bank?
• Opportunities to gain experience in a variety of specialist teams, helping you to develop your skills and build on your career
• Excellent rates of pay
• Enhanced rates of pay for unsocial hours
• Access to Wagestream, allowing you to stream wages before payday
• Access to NHS discounts and benefits
• Access to NHS Pension Scheme
• 28 days pro- rata annual leave per year
• First pick of shifts via an online system
• Flexibility to pick and choose when and where you work to suit your lifestyle
There is a recruitment process to join the bank. You will need to apply online via our vacancies page. If there isn't a vacancy online please contact the team direct via email
fhft.tsrecruitment@nhs.net or call 0300 6136901
We have the following staff bank opportunities at Frimley Health NHS
Foundation Trust:
• Nursing & Midwifery
• Allied Health Professionals
• Medics
• Care Assistants
If your application meets the criteria, you will invited to interview. If successful at interview, a series of pre employment checks will be carried out before you'll be given a start date. You'll also be required to complete mandatory training as part of your induction. Once you have completed these steps, you can choose which shifts and areas you want to work.
For any other information please contact the Staff Bank team
direct email: fhft.tsrecruitment@nhs.net or call 0300 6136901
