Case Studies

North West Primary Care Trust
Barnsley PCT
Care Quality Commission
Nursing and Midwifery Council

North West Primary Care Trust

A member of our assessment team led a successful competitive tendering process to support this PCT with a restructure in its commissioning directorate, which was required as part of CPLNHS.  The aim was to enable the PCT to allocate people to new roles in an objective, fair and accurate way. This complex and sensitive project involved:

• Developing an assessment process to measure criteria from the NHS KSF, for roles within commissioning, performance and IT at Bands 5 to 8d
• Designing bespoke assessment exercises to evaluate commissioning skills and interpersonal qualities
• Training PCT Directors to assess objectively
• Designing and running briefing sessions for candidates to help them prepare for the assessments
• Running assessment centres and administering psychometric tests
• Preparing individual reports for and providing feedback to every candidate
• Facilitating ‘wash-up' discussions with PCT Directors to support their decision making processes

Transparency and a close working relationship with the HR team was essential to the smooth running of this logistically complex project. It was also important that the design of the assessment process enabled candidates to demonstrate a range of relevant skills, rather than forcing them to participate in an assessment process for every role. This added complexity to the assessment process but we worked to keep it simple and useable for assessors.  Irrespective of individual outcomes, all candidates felt that they had been treated fairly and appreciated the detailed feedback they received.

North West Primary Care Trust

A member of our assessment team supported the new Director of this PCT's provider unit with the appointment to three critical posts within the senior team, which included:

• Development of bespoke assessment exercises, designed to measure qualities from the NHS LQF
• Application sifting and interviewing, to prepare a shortlist of candidates for attendance at assessment centre
• Training PCT staff as assessors and supporting them during the assessment centre
• Selecting, administering and providing feedback on ability tests and personality questionnaires
• Giving face to face feedback to the successful candidates, to enable them to construct personal development plans

Barnsley PCT

Senior appointments to the new provider division of this PCT have been supported by GatenbySanderson's assessment team. Each senior appointment involves an in-depth assessment of shortlisted candidates' personal style and approach. This includes personality profiling, an assessment of their leadership judgement, a competency-based interview and a work simulation exercise. GatenbySanderson assessors manage the entire process and report back to the panel in advance of final interview, which allows the panel to focus their interview on exploring specific areas of concern in relation to the candidate's fit with the role.

Care Quality Commission

We were retained by the Care Quality Commission to partner them on the appointment of their second and third tier teams.  The Healthcare Commission, the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) and the Mental Health Act Commission were due to cease by Act of Parliament in March 2009, with the new Commission picking up their responsibilities.  With the Chair (Barbara Young) and the Chief Executive (Cynthia Bowers) already in post the challenge was to strike the right balance between tight timescales and recruiting the best people for these key roles. 

This was an organisation in a state of transition which meant that there was little continuity on the client side.  We took control of the brief and ensured strong communication lines at all times, making sure that we understood the ideas behind the set up of the organisation and were aware and able to respond when the brief changed.  Delivering this project relied on our ability, as a limited company which does not answer to a corporate parent, to be flexible enough to change our resourcing strategy at the drop of a hat, to have strong political acumen and to respond quickly to a changing brief. 

With a dedicated project team we worked closely with the client and the transitional HR team, protecting them from risk and ensuring excellent candidate care throughout.  There were particular sensitivities with a strong field of internal candidates which required careful handling.  The outcome of this complex project was:

• The appointment of four Director posts through open competition.
• The appointment of over 40 third tier posts through ring-fenced competition (from an original pool of 90)

Nursing and Midwifery Council

GatenbySanderson was retained by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) to:

• recruit at least 60 lay panel members for fitness to practise panels
• recruit 8 reviewers (4 registrant and 4 lay)
• design and conduct assessments for over 60 posts in 2 months
• attract a diverse field of candidates to the role
• reduce the number of unsuitable applications at the outset
• provide a robust and transparent selection methodology
• ensure that not only competence but each candidate's personal aptitude was tested thoroughly.

Given the high number of applicants with relevant experience to offer, the aim of the assessment centre was to objectively differentiate between candidates, particularly in relation to providing a reliable measure of the ‘softer skills' important for the roles.

The assessment team within GS advised on the design of the assessment centre, which was based on NMC's competency model. The elements of the assessment centre were chosen to measure each competency on more than one occasion and to give candidates the opportunity to demonstrate their skills. It was felt that an assessment centre of half a day's duration was appropriate and likely to be acceptable to a population who had not experienced such a process before.

This was a highly successful campaign in that it:

• Recruited 86 lay panel members for fitness to practise panels
• Recruited 8 reviewers (4 registrant and 4 lay)
• Provided a very diverse field of successful candidates
• Included an innovative assessment centre which successfully identified candidate skills and resulted in a very high pass rate at interview, thereby reducing the work of the Appointments Board