Northern Beaches Hospital jobs: More than 1000 apply for 70 positions
Northern Beaches Hospital, which struggled to recruit staff following a troubled opening year, is now in demand as a place to work.
Manly
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More than 1000 people have applied for just 70 jobs at Northern Beaches Hospital.
It is a huge turnaround for the $600m Frenchs Forest hospital, which last year was so desperate to find staff it launched an overseas recruitment drive targeting medics from as far away as the UK and Ireland.
However, this month the hospital has had over 1000 applications for just 40 new roles for junior medical officers and 30 nursing graduate positions.
Northern Beaches Hospital Director of Medical Services, Dr Peter Thomas said the overwhelming response is testament to the excellent reputation that the hospital has earned.
“The hospital is attracting high calibre applicants from across the country and internationally,” he said.
“Our recruitment campaign for junior medical officers has attracted more than 470 applications for 40 new positions for 2021 and we’ve had 640 applications for 30 nursing graduate positions.
“The hospital has earned a good reputation for providing high quality education to our junior clinicians.”
The private-public hospital suffered a prolonged bout of bad publicity following its opening in October 2018.
Staff and patients called the Manly Daily to report various concerns with the operation of the new hospital, including the high number of inexperienced agency staff.
The operation of the hospital and opening of the facility was also the subject of a public inquiry.
Since opening many of the original leadership team have left.
A new CEO, Andrew Newton, started at the hospital last September.
A source said agency staff now make up three per cent of the workforce, which was the target set by private operator Healthscope, according to the previous Medical Director Louise Messara when she was interviewed in 2018.
Last year Northern Beaches Hospital received a boost when it was also awarded the maximum four years accreditation by the Health Education and Training Institute (HETI) which oversees the training and education of junior doctors in NSW.
Director of Nursing, Fiona Allsop said the hospital, this year, also gained full accreditation by Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care and met all of the 147 required actions.
“We’ve worked very hard to develop a dynamic and innovative clinical community with access to some of the most modern facilities and equipment in Sydney,” Ms Allsop said.
“We have a number of new senior clinicians who have joined the team and that helps to attract young clinicians that want to learn from the best.”
The 486-bed hospital is for both public and private patients.