The cost and wording of a recent advertisement in the RCN Bulletin for nursing staff

1240/5(2030)

QUESTION TO BE ASKED OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE ON TUESDAY 3rd FEBRUARY 2004 BY THE DEPUTY OF ST. JOHN

Question

Would the President inform members of the cost of the advertisement which was placed in the November 2003 issue of the Royal College of Nursing RCN Bulletin, and explain why the words with plenty of funds and no shortage of facilities' were used in the advertisement in view of the current States policy of financial restraint in the current economic climate?

Answer

The advertisement of November 2003 in the Royal College of Nursing Bulletin is part of a broader pro-active campaign developed in 2002 to ensure that Jersey is able to continue to attract quality nursing staff to the Island, in the face of serious competition and a world shortage of qualified nurses. This campaign replaces the previous strategy of placing individual adverts for individual vacancies and is considerably more cost effective than the former arrangements. In 2002, the cost of placing individual adverts for professional vacancies was £146,000. The campaign which now includes individual job vacancies within an overall promotion of Health & Social Services in Jersey as an attractive employer, reduced the annual advertising cost in 2003 to £90,000.

The campaign has been extremely successful in creating a continuous stream of prospective applications which, with the exception of certain specialist areas which continue to prove difficult, has greatly assisted in ensuring continuity of a high quality nursing service for the Island. The reference to plenty of funds and no shortage of facilities' was a direct quote from new recruits to the service who were interviewed during the development of the campaign in 2002 to elicit the attractive differences between working in Jersey in comparison with working in some parts of the U.K. National Health Service.