Devon Alliance for International Recruitment — International Nurse Recruitment Programme

The Challenge

The Devon Alliance for International Recruitment was established in 2021 to address a sustained and serious nursing shortage across six NHS Trusts in a geography that faces particular challenges in attracting both domestic and international candidates relative to major metropolitan health economies.

The Alliance’s ambition from the outset was to build a direct recruitment model — one that would allow the NHS in Devon to own its international recruitment relationships, control candidate quality, manage costs, and provide the pastoral care and cultural integration support that ethical long-term recruitment requires. This was a deliberate and principled departure from the conventional agency-dependent approach.

Building that model from a standing start required two things that the Alliance did not have internally: deep operational knowledge of international healthcare recruitment markets, and the technology infrastructure to manage a complex, multi-Trust, multi-market candidate pipeline at scale.

Our Role

Staffbank’s engagement with the Devon Alliance was strategic rather than operational — working in the background to provide the expertise, market intelligence and SaaS infrastructure that made the Alliance’s direct recruitment model viable.

Our contribution spanned three functions:

1. Recruitment Programme Design Consultancy

Staffbank contributed to the design of the recruitment model from the ground up — advising on sourcing strategy, candidate journey architecture, compliance framework and the operational structure required to run a multi-Trust international recruitment programme that adhered strictly to the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel and the UK Code of Practice for International Recruitment.

The Alliance’s commitment to recruiting exclusively from WHO Green List countries — nations where emigration does not materially impact the healthcare system of the source country — was a founding principle of the programme. Staffbank’s experience of WHO Code-compliant international recruitment across more than three decades informed the practical translation of that principle into a working sourcing strategy.

2. Bespoke SaaS ATS and Candidate Management Infrastructure

A direct recruitment model operating across six NHS Trusts, multiple international source markets and the full NMC registration and onboarding journey requires technology that generic off-the-shelf platforms are not designed to provide. Staffbank custom designed and built a bespoke applicant tracking system and candidate management database — a SaaS solution developed specifically for the operational requirements of the Devon Alliance programme.

The system provided the Alliance with a single platform capable of tracking candidates from initial application through NMC registration, compliance verification, visa processing and Trust arrival — across multiple geographies and six Trust destinations simultaneously. This infrastructure was the operational backbone that allowed the Alliance to run a high-volume direct recruitment model without the administrative overhead that would otherwise have required a large internal team or external agency dependency.

3. International Market Intelligence

Staffbank provided ongoing market intelligence to inform the Alliance’s sourcing decisions — drawing on operational experience across international nursing markets in the GCC, Southeast Asia, Africa, the Philippines, India and beyond. This included assessment of source market viability against WHO Code compliance, NMC registration eligibility, English language baseline and realistic candidate volumes — ensuring the Alliance’s direct recruitment activity was directed at markets most likely to produce sustainable, high-quality candidate pipelines.

The Programme Model — Direct Recruitment Enabled by Expert Infrastructure

The Devon Alliance’s approach is worth understanding on its own terms, because it is what makes this case study distinctive. Rather than outsourcing international recruitment to an agency, the Alliance built a programme they owned — showcasing Devon as a destination, providing direct pastoral and cultural integration support to every arriving nurse, and maintaining direct relationships with candidates throughout their journey.

The Devon Alliance’s approach is worth understanding on its own terms, because it is what makes this case study distinctive. Rather than outsourcing international recruitment to an agency, the Alliance built a programme they owned — showcasing Devon as a destination, providing direct pastoral and cultural integration support to every arriving nurse, and maintaining direct relationships with candidates throughout their journey.

The programme has since expanded beyond nursing to cover allied health professionals including radiographers and paramedics, and international social care workers — a natural extension of an infrastructure that was built to scale.

Outcomes

The Devon Alliance for International Recruitment celebrated the arrival of its 1,000th international nurse in July 2023 — reached within two years of the programme’s 2021 launch — with the programme continuing to grow beyond that milestone. The programme is now one of the most cited examples of sustainable, ethical, direct international nurse recruitment in the NHS.

In the words of the International Nursing Workforce Lead for the Devon Alliance:

“Global Career Networks Ltd (now Staffbank) is our key partner; advertising, sourcing, recruiting and placing international nurses and, more recently, allied health staff. Working with multiple stakeholders, GCN has demonstrated their ability to provide services to assist recruited staff to commence work in Devon. GCN’s knowledge of the requirements and ability to achieve successful outcomes is clearly evident. GCN has provided considerable insight into the dynamics of global healthcare recruitment which stems from extensive exposure to this market over the last few decades. This knowledge has been of great value and assisted us to plan, execute and deliver our recruitment model that has recently seen our 500th international nurse arrival.”
— Tracey Collins, International Nursing Workforce Lead, Devon Alliance for International Recruitment

Why It Matters

The Devon Alliance case study illustrates a dimension of Staffbank’s capability that is different in character from the other programmes in this portfolio. It is not a case study in volume delivery under a Staffbank mandate. It is a case study in what becomes possible when a healthcare organisation is given the expertise, intelligence and infrastructure to run international recruitment exceptionally well on its own terms.

Designing the model, building the technology, providing the market intelligence — and then stepping back to allow the Alliance’s own team to own the candidate relationships and the programme’s identity — requires a depth of operational knowledge and an absence of commercial ego that is unusual in this market. Most agencies have a structural interest in remaining indispensable. Staffbank’s interest is in the outcome.

The 1,000th arrival in July 2023, reached within two years of launch, is a programme outcome that speaks for itself. The infrastructure and expertise that made it possible sit with Staffbank.

Credentials Relevant to This Programme

• Strategic design and infrastructure partner to the Devon Alliance for International Recruitment — representing six NHS Trusts in Devon
• Bespoke SaaS ATS and candidate management system designed and built for multi- Trust international recruitment at scale
• Carter Wellington Global Recruitment Group (a Staffbank division) is an NHS framework-approved supplier
• Founding signatory to the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel
• Full compliance with the UK Code of Practice (CoP) for International Recruitment
• 35+ years of operational experience across international nursing workforce markets
• Direct working knowledge of NMC registration pathways for internationally trained nurses

Letter of recommendation held on file from Tracey Collins, International Nursing Workforce Lead, Devon Alliance for International Recruitment. Programme milestone independently documented at onedevon.org.uk.