A HOSPITAL trust has received a flood of support from people in Barrow after an appeal to help international recruits.

The Morecambe Bay Hospital Trust put an appeal out on social media asking for landlords and driving instructors to support new staff when they come to the UK to work.

Each month the trust receives 15 recruits to work in its hospitals across Morecambe Bay.

When the international recruits arrive they will initially be living in hospital run accommodation until they are able to find a place of their own.

But with the pandemic recruits are struggling to find somewhere to live.

Alma Paule, project lead - international retention program board, said: "Because of lockdown and everything that has happened there are very limited amounts of accommodation available in the community.

"We have the accommodation initially that people use when they arrive but because there is a very slow movement of getting people out of there, there is no more room for our incoming recruits to go to."

The campaign launched yesterday (Thursday, 2) and already Alma said she has received a good response from the Barrow community.

She said: "We want to reach out to the community, whether it is a private landlord with a property to rent or anybody who has properties who they want to rent out.

"So far we have got a very nice response from people in Barrow, there is already a lot of interest here. Ihave had some interest from Lancaster but none from the Kendal area."

The trust is also calling on driving instructors to take part in the trust driving initiative and help support international recruits to get their licences.

"Some of our international recruits do have a background in driving or hold a foreign licence," she said.

"If we could find someone who could teach our recruits how to drive safely here in the UK that would be great."

Due to the backlog which was made worse because of the pandemic the trust has had no luck in finding driving instructors to help. 

If you would like to support international recruits yourself you can email Alma at alma.paule@mbht.nhs.uk.