Meeting the challenge of recruitment to enrolled nurse conversion courses.

The Northampton Community Healthcare NHS Trust is not unique in facing a challenging agenda of organisational development. Naturally, this is dominated by appropriate staff development and accurate workforce planning. Like many other NHS trusts, it needs to attract and retain qualified nurses to deliver quality healthcare services to patients. However, nationally, there is a shortage of this staff group, and this situation presents an additional challenge to the organisation. To address nurse recruitment difficulties, many NHS trusts deploy resources to attract nurses from all parts of the United Kingdom and from abroad. This trust currently employs 77 enrolled nurses and has implemented plans to invest in enrolled nurse conversion. It is hoped that this will minimise the impact of nursing shortages and increase the local availability of a motivated, skilled and competent nursing workforce. This article outlines the history and the current position of the national initiative to convert ENs to the first level of the UKCC nursing register. It will also describe the project work that has been ongoing in a community NHS trust to encourage enrolled nurses to convert over the last three to four years. The current successes and benefits will be outlined, as will the areas where further exploration is required, and why. It will be proposed that an organisation can only progress enrolled nurse conversion when it engages them in the debate to understand the issues from their perspective.