VIQU’s NHS IT Volunteer Initiative
Delivering talented volunteer IT professionals to the NHS throughout the Covid-19 pandemic
When the first UK lockdown was introduced in mid-March 2020, we were amazed by the number of people that responded to the government's request for volunteers.
Internally, we had received many calls from out-of-work IT contractors who couldn't find paid work but were keen to continue utilising their skills. In response, our team created the NHS IT Volunteer Initiative.
The NHS IT Volunteer Initiative is an innovative way to support NHS Trusts and their IT departments across the UK during the pandemic.
By introducing out-of-work IT professionals to NHS Trusts, their IT departments were able to get some respite from the overwhelming job of setting up the infrastructure to allow remote working. We hoped that offering volunteer support would alleviate some of these pressures for the Trusts and provide the IT professionals with fantastic NHS experience.
Between March and December 2020, we worked with 60+ Trusts and other blue light organisations, placing over 260 talented IT volunteers. The roles these volunteers filled varied from Office 365 Project Managers and Attend Anywhere Trainers, to Infrastructure Engineers and IT Support.
The high standard of IT volunteers we provided, resulted in 45% of voluntary placements being converted into paid contracts/permanent roles. This is a testament to the amount of effort and passion these IT contractors delivered whilst volunteering their time.
We were thrilled to save the NHS approximately £1.95 million through our initiative.
After all of the hard work and effort our team put into our NHS IT Volunteer Initiative, we were elated to win 'Best Recruitment Team of the Year' at the Recruiter Investing in Talent 2020 Awards, due to our work with the NHS.
Additionally, our work was recently recognised at The Global Recruiter UK Awards, where we won 'Best Small Recruitment Business 2021', due to our proactivity and innovative approach to public sector recruitment.
If you are interested in learning more about our initiative and how we support public sector organisations with their IT recruitment strategies, please click here to get in touch.
NHS IT Volunteer Initiative Testimonial
“When we were initially approached by the guys at VIQU regarding their NHS IT Volunteer Initiative, we were worried it was some sort of scam. Instead, what we found in our hour of need was masses of goodwill, expert IT volunteers and much needed help to support our health board, which was hit hard by COVID -19. The impact of these volunteers was felt by our doctors, nurses and provided much appreciated support to our Informatics team. I would like to thank our volunteers, and of course the VIQU team who we are delighted to continue to work with on our IT recruitment strategy.”
Mike Ogonovsky - Chief Digital Officer and SRO TEC Cymru at Aneurin Bevan University Health Board