Healthdaq: Shaking up health and social care recruitment

As the deadline for entries for the Personnel Today Awards 2025 fast approaches, we profile one of the big winners at the 2024 awards. Healthdaq scooped the Excellence in Public Service Award for its role in dramatically reducing the health service in Northern Ireland’s reliance on agency workers. So what’s next for the company?

In the summer of 2023, Health and Social Care trusts in Northern Ireland ceased all use of agencies to recruit social workers. In a climate where healthcare employers claim they’re up against acute skills shortages, this was a bold move. Since then, the trusts have recruited more than 600 social workers directly, thanks in no small part to a partnership with recruitment technology company Healthdaq.

On the back of these and other results, Healthdaq won the Excellence in Public Service Award at last year’s Personnel Today Awards. Its innovative, subscription-based recruitment model encompassing marketing, technology and support reduced agency social worker costs from £10.2 million to £3.2 million, before ultimately ensuring no agency workers were employed at all for these roles.

The company was also shortlisted in the Talent Acquisition Partner category for its work with the Western Health and Social Care Trust, which led to it having the lowest vacancy rate in Northern Ireland, having previously had the highest.

Stephen McLarnon, CEO of Healthdaq, believes there is an “access problem” rather than a shortage of talent when it comes to recruiting health and social care workers.

“The biggest driver of agency spend is ineffective recruitment advertising or outdated tech coupled with inefficient processes,” he says. “With the right marketing and optimised processes, you can generate substantial hires.”

For the Department of Health Northern Ireland, it helped streamline processes such as applications from newly qualified social workers, working in partnership with local universities.

Overcoming hurdles

Healthcare recruitment by its very nature can be cumbersome – it’s very highly regulated, so the appropriate employment checks can slow down the process, and in the past, some NHS roles have taken over 140 days to fill, he adds. Healthdaq supported six trusts to employ more than 7,000 staff during the Covid pandemic, and continues to add more to its roster of clients. For one client, it now supports all non-clinical recruitment, saving it £3.75 million on agency spend.

But while saving money is important, there are other factors to consider. By supporting HR teams on how to become more self-sufficient with their recruitment, they not only reduce the time it takes to fill roles but also create better outcomes for patients, trusts and the taxpayer.

Healthdaq’s Stephen McLarnon (third from left) collects the Excellence in Public Service HR prize for its work with the Department of Health Northern Ireland at the Personnel Today Awards 2024. Telling Photography

McLarnon explains: “Take the social care labour market in the UK, domiciliary care workers are a relatively unknown, yet critical staff group that support patient flow from hospitals as well as preventing admissions by providing care in a patient’s own home.

“If a trust or council has 600 care packages that it cannot fulfil, that’s 600 patients who can’t be discharged from hospital and potentially 600 patients who cannot get a bed.”

Healthdaq can work with trusts or councils to run open days, improve their marketing and finesse their onboarding so they can manage attraction and processes better. It has launched a subscription model to make costs even more predictable and steady, a fixed-fee regardless of how many roles are filled. Despite its achievements so far – Healthdaq was also crowned Talent Acquisition Partner of the Year in 2023 – there is still a lot of pressure to “prove” itself to NHS employers, says McLarnon, but winning awards does help.

Following the 2024 award and meeting its target of zero agency social workers, Healthdaq, the trust’s HR and social work leads were invited to Stormont for a celebratory lunch by the NI Chief Social Work Officer, while the Minister of Health held a separate event to mark the achievement.

“For the Minister and the Chief Social Work Officer to recognise the hard work of the trusts was massive as the public sector doesn’t always get this type of recognition,” McLarnon adds.

With ever greater scrutiny on public sector budgets and the need to reduce agency spend in the NHS and councils, Healthdaq will continue to make an impact on health and social care for years to come.

The deadline for the Personnel Today Awards 2025 has been extended until Monday 23 June.

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