Almost three quarters (70%) of experience IT pros claim to have considered a move to the NHS, according to a survey by IT healthcare recruiter max20.
Questioning 130 IT professionals, that work outside of the NHS, 46% said ‘career stability’ and 21.9% chose ‘giving back to the community’ as the main reasons for considering a career move to the IT in the NHS. The recruiter also questioned 400 IT NHS professionals who agreed with these two main reasons to make a move in to NHS IT.
This group also highlighted ‘rates’ as being a key factor, whereas only 8.6% of non-NHS IT staff felt this was an attractive reason to work for the NHS.
Nearly half of the 400 NHS IT employees said the ‘scope and scale of projects’ was what most attracted them to the sector, whereas only 7% of non-NHS IT staff said the same.
The survey also found that many IT pros are put off by the belief that experience within the NHS is necessary, in order to secure a new career path.
More on the NHS
NHS set to challenge ICO fine
NHS anticipates move to G-Cloud for secure email services
NHS Trust uses Accenture for system integration
NHS reiterates commitment to digitise patient records by 2015
NHS Trust uses Accenture for system integration
Don Tomlinson who heads up max20, said: “The NHS will miss out on new talent to meet the growing demands for high level IT professionals created by the restructuring of the organisation.
“We have to get across that the NHS is starting to seriously consider experienced IT professionals with business skills. We have placed quite a number senior staff without NHS experience this year. Things are changing fast, but this message and others are yet to fully to catch-up.”
The study also revealed that those who enter the NHS tend to stay for the long-haul. Of those questioned 38.4% that currently work for NHS have worked with it for longer than four years. Furthermore, nearly 50% said they plan to stay for a further three years minimum.
