MORE than 1,000 people responded to a recruitment drive from NHS Fife to help in the battle against COVID-19.

Friends and family, people who had retired and final year students, were among those targeted as the board strived to ensure it had enough staff to cope.

A report explained: "NHS Fife undertook a number of local recruitment campaigns aimed at temporarily increasing our workforce capacity in response to pressures presented by COVID-19.

"Over 1,000 candidates responded to these various campaigns and work has been ongoing to accelerate these candidates through the recruitment processes and secure their availability to work."

It added: "There are four streams of activity in place to supplement the existing workforce: increasing the existing nurse bank capacity; writing to leavers and retirees back to 2018/19; a family and friends campaign; and returning and accelerated registrants, including allocation of final year students (medical and non-medical)."

Allocation is "prioritised by greatest service need" and a fast-track virtual programme is in place to ensure new-starts can get started effectively.

Training and learning materials are online, with 300 staff having already gone through this induction route.

Clinical skills are identified and new staff are sorted into those who could be used within alternative areas and non-clinical staff who could be deployed into different roles or areas.

The report added: "The Virtual Mobilisation Hub has a varied skill mix of supplementary workforce ranging from domestics, porters, administrators to registrants.

"This will ensure that NHS Fife can meet current and changing service demands and where the substantive workforce is impacted upon.2

In response to the Test, Trace, Isolate and Support programme, NHS Fife has used the hub to deploy some of its existing workforce, for example those who are shielding or self-isolating, to "use their skillset in this project".