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Graduate employment

Newly qualified graduates across the UK have been facing serious difficulties in obtaining their first permanent junior physiotherapy job for some years now.

"I would urge all members affected to register with these talent pools for new graduates..."

See more on talent pool registration (for graduates of English HEIs).

The problem, caused by a rapid expansion of student numbers, poor workforce planning and a shortage of junior posts, was first detected by the CSP in 2004. Since that time the CSP has been campaigning and lobbying hard at both national, country and local level to ensure that action is taken across the NHS to resolve this problem.

Further details about the work that the CSP has been carrying out to support unemployed graduates are contained in our Graduate Employment Bulletins. These include the results of the latest surveys we have undertaken to find out how many graduates have obtained junior physiotherapy jobs.

Keep your contact details up to date

Please remember to keep the CSP informed if your contact details change. We often find that new graduates forget to let us know if their email address changes (especially when graduating as their university email account is deleted). The CSP does email information out to all graduates on our membership database, for example job adverts, opportunities for shadowing, mentoring or volunteering. If your email address is out of date you will not receive this information from us.

You can ensure we have the right contact details for you by telephoning the CSP's Enquiry Handling Unit on 020 7306 6666.

Help us to help you

The CSP is continuing to monitor employment levels among graduates so please reply as soon as possible to any surveys or requests for updates on your job situation that we send you. If you have managed to get a permanent physiotherapy job we need to know that too, and it has an added benefit for you in that you will no longer receive unnecessary emails from us.

Requests for updates are usually sent to you from us by email - another reason to make sure we have your current email address. We need as many of you as possible to respond to all our surveys to make sure our information is as robust and credible as possible. The information we produce is used in all four countries to help with our lobbying and campaigning work and is taken very seriously by the Health Departments. Our surveys have helped us to convince the Department of Health in England that the numbers of physiotherapy graduates registering on the SHA talent pools (also known as newly qualified profile pools) was under-representing the true numbers of graduates looking for jobs.

CSP Guidance to help you

The CSP has produced a number of guidance and briefing papers to help you in your search for a job:

Student Survival Guide

The CSP has produced a student survival guide containing information and advice for new graduates about action to take to help secure a job.

Volunteering

Some new graduates who have not yet obtained paid employment as a physiotherapist are being offered opportunities to volunteer in physiotherapy departments to help maintain their clinical skills. This throws up a number of ethical issues such as the risk of volunteers being used as a substitute for paid staff. The CSP has produced guidance on when and how such schemes should be set up.

For further information, please read our guidelines on volunteering.

Join the iCSP newly qualified network

InteractiveCSP enables CSP members to engage with their clinical peers to keep up to date, to interact and share knowledge and resources with others who share their interests. Among the many networks is one specifically for newly qualified physiotherapists. On this site you will find discussions, advice and information on a range of issues such as where to look for jobs, job interviews, skills workshops and volunteering opportunities.

You can register for the network on iCSP: www.interactivecsp.org.uk

Supporting graduates in the four countries

As a result of the devolvement of health policy to the four countries within the UK, different approaches to dealing with physiotherapy graduate employment are being undertaken in each country. So, for example, the English SHAs have set up talent pools for new graduates who qualified from English HEIs. For up to date information on what is happening in each country and CSP wide, read the latest CSP Graduate Employment Bulletins (see physio alerts where these bulletins appear).

Below is a brief overview on how graduate employment is being dealt with in each country:

The Position in England

The CSP has been working closely with the Department of Health and NHS Employers, to make sure that graduate employment remains a high priority. It is recognised that although there has been some impact on other healthcare professions, the most affected group is physiotherapy.

English Social Partnership Forum Action Plan

The English Social Partnership Forum (SPF) is a tripartite group made up of NHS trade unions, NHS Employers and the Department of Health. It follows a formal partnership agreement working jointly on policy development focussing in particular on workforce implications. The CSP is an active member of this forum.

The Social Partnership Forum Action Plan, Maximising employment opportunities for newly qualified healthcare professionals, was launched in April 2007 and has been widely publicised among CSP members. The CSP has played a key role in developing this plan, working closely with other SPF members. CSP Senior Negotiating Officers from the Employment Relations & Union Services (ERUS) function are involved with local Strategic Health Authority (SHA) partnership groups which are leading the work on implementing the action plan at local level.

Register for your local SHA talent pool (English HEI graduates only)

The SHAs have now set up website-based profile or talent pools. All new healthcare professional graduates who have not yet obtained their first junior physiotherapy job are being asked to register with them. When you register, you will be asked to sign up to the SHA which funded your training place, although you will be able to state which of the other English SHAs you are prepared to work in. Your SHA will then be able to send you information about suitable jobs and other initiatives (such as open days, clinical skills workshops) they are undertaking to help resolve the problem of unemployment among new graduates.

For detailed guidance on how to register and what to do if you are no longer living in the SHA which commissioned your training place, read the CSP briefing How to register with the English SHA Talent Pools.

Kate Moran, the CSP's head of employment relations research, can't stress the importance of registering for the talent pools enough:

"I would urge all members affected to register with these talent pools for new graduates which are being run by the Strategic Health Authority which funded your training. The Department of Health and NHS Employers will be monitoring the numbers registered with the local pools and will use this information to assess how many are still looking for jobs and therefore how many new posts are needed. It is very important that you continue to re-register every three months if you have not found a job or you will be removed from the register.

"The CSP is aware that some graduates have received little or no information after registering and that this is resulting in graduates not bothering to re-register with the pools. Others have not registered because they are now living in a different SHA area to the one which commissioned their training place.We have taken this up with NHS Employers and asked them to contact the SHAs to stress the importance of initiating and maintaining contact with registrants. Graduates: keep going - make sure you keep your registration up with the talent pools - we are pushing as hard as we can to get these working effectively."

The NHS Employers website also has more information on the newly qualified profile or talent pools.

The position in Wales

The CSP has lobbied the Welsh Assembly Government and received strong media interest and support from key policy makers. The Wales Minister for Health and Social Services has undertaken to review the link between workforce training and planning and has acknowledged the important role physiotherapists have to play in improving A&E services, supporting people with long term conditions in the community and preventing delayed discharges. CSP officers have met regularly with the Minister to discuss solutions.

The position in Scotland

CSP officers have lobbied all political parties in Scotland on graduate unemployment. The Health Secretary has acknowledged the role of AHPs in reducing waiting times and is working with the CSP, NHS Boards and NHS Education Scotland to ensure that the pool of unemployed physiotherapy graduates is tapped.

The position in Northern Ireland

A physiotherapy taskforce has been set up to establish solutions to the high levels of unemployment among new physiotherapy graduates and the CSP is represented on the taskforce. Questions about employment levels continue to be raised with ministers.