Bradford’s hospitals have signed up to a new scheme which is helping local homeless people to gain valuable work experience.

The ‘Ready for Work’ initiative is run by Bradford & Bingley, with support from Bradford Metropolitan District Council, on behalf of Business Action on Homelessness, a campaign led by Business in the Community. It works with local businesses and other agencies to provide training and work placements to homeless people to help them get into work. 

Over the last six months, Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has taken on three Ready for Work clients on two-week work placements in their catering and portering departments.

The Foundation Trust’s Head of Training, Amanda Hudson, said: “Bradford Hospitals has a long history of providing work-related activities and work experience placements to assist with increasing and widening future recruitment into the NHS.
“It is important that we have a workforce which reflects the community that we serve and being involved with this scheme helps us to reach people who may not have previously considered a career in the NHS.”

The Ready for Work programme works with a variety of people, all of whom have been homeless or at risk of homelessness. Clients include those who have lost their homes through financial difficulty due to redundancy, victims of domestic violence, ex-armed services personnel and people who have suffered through relationship breakdown, which is the biggest cause of homelessness throughout the UK. 

Vicky Ing, Ready for Work Programme Manager for Bradford & Bingley said: “Feedback from our clients at the hospital has been very positive. The placements have given each person the opportunity to develop transferable skills to improve their chances of finding work, and their confidence has soared as a result.

One is currently looking for a job in the catering industry, another is pursuing higher education and part-time work, while the third is actively pursuing a career in retail. These are brilliant outcomes for all three of our clients.”
The next “Ready for Work” trainees will begin working at the BRI this month.

Five other schemes are also scheduled to take place in Bradford throughout 2011.