Healthdaq wins HealthInvestor’s Recruitment Firm of the Year 2025.

Last night, in front of 1,300 industry leaders at the HealthInvestor Awards in London, Healthdaq was named Recruitment Firm of the Year. We’re honoured, proud—and even more motivated than ever to change recruitment for the better.

We didn’t win this because we’re just another agency—we’re not even a recruitment agency.

We are a HealthTech transforming recruitment management in healthcare with an innovative subscription service that empowers employers to manage all their recruitment for a fixed monthly fee and end their agency spend for good.

We won because we offer something different—a better, smarter alternative to agency spend. One that’s built for NHS Trusts, care homes, and private hospitals looking to take control of their workforce.

This award isn’t a finish line. It’s fuel for our mission:

• End agency dependency in healthcare
• Empower HR teams with tech and support
• Save employers millions in recruitment costs
• Say goodbye to agency commissions and margins

Our model:

• Subscription-based recruitment (no commission)
• Full-stack platform + campaign support
• Fill roles 3x faster and 70% cheaper

From NHS Trusts to care home operators, employers are choosing Healthdaq to help them reduce agency spend, build talent pipelines, and deliver better care through better hiring.

We’re here to help more providers say goodbye to agency spend for good.

If that sounds like your goal, let’s talk.

Healthdaq named Most Innovative Healthcare Recruitment Solutions Provider 2025 — Driving the Movement to End Agency Spend.

The healthcare recruitment landscape has shifted. Post-pandemic, the urgency has waned but the pressure hasn’t. Public and private healthcare providers are being asked to do more with less—fill critical roles, safeguard patient safety, and reduce spiralling agency costs. At Healthdaq, we’ve made it our mission to help them do just that.

We’re proud to share that Healthdaq has been named Most Innovative Healthcare Recruitment Solutions Provider 2025 at the Corporate Vision HR & Employment Awards.

This award reflects our belief that healthcare organisations deserve better than the broken agency model—and the growing number of employers who are brave enough to challenge it.

For too long, recruitment agencies have positioned themselves as the only way to fill vacancies. But at Healthdaq, we’re building the alternative: a subscription-based recruitment management service designed to put employers back in control.

We don’t place candidates. We equip HR and recruitment teams with the tools, campaigns, and platform to do it better—in-house.

Our innovative subscription-based recruitment model gives healthcare employers:

• Unlimited digital recruitment advertising campaigns and events
• A fully branded employer presence online
• Fixed monthly pricing—no commission, no surprises
• Access to our healthcare-specific hiring platform

And most importantly: real, measurable savings. One client saved over 5 million per year after switching from agencies to Healthdaq.

Winning this award is a powerful moment — but it’s not about us. It’s about our clients that choose to be different, who’ve had the courage to rethink recruitment, invest in internal capability, and take the first step toward Zero Agency.

If you’re facing the same agency pressures, you’re not alone. There is a proven, scalable way to recruit faster, smarter, and more affordably

We’re here to help.

Let’s end agency spend for good.

In July 2023, Health and Social Care Trusts ceased all social work agency usage in Northern Ireland following intensive work between the Department of Health and the specialist healthcare recruitment services company Healthdaq.

Health Minister Mike Nesbitt paid tribute to those involved in the initiative after the Department and Healthdaq were awarded joint winners of the Personnel Today Award for Excellence in Public Service HR Award in London in recognition of the project’s success.

The Minister said:

“I highly commend the tireless efforts and collaboration between my Department, HSC Trust representatives and Healthdaq in ensuring the successful delivery of this significant initiative. Spend on agency social work over the last 10 years totalled almost £75m. With our HSC system facing continued budgetary pressures, ending agency usage has been an important step to take. But it’s not just about the costs. The main driver of this work has always been to stabilise the workforce and as a result, improve social work services. HSC staff have also clearly told us that the use of agency social workers is counterproductive, unfair and impacts negatively on morale. Having ended its use, we would expect to see improved and more consistent social work services for adults, children, and families. I want to congratulate all those involved in winning this award.” 

Aine Morrison, Chief Social Worker, said:

“I am delighted that we have received this award. It is a fitting testimony to what can be achieved when different parts of a system work together to achieve a clear, common goal. Effective social work services are built on sustained and meaningful relationships. The changes we have made to date provide an opportunity to establish a stable and consistent workforce for the future and the potential to improve the services our social workers provide every day. I am really grateful to everyone who contributed to making this happen.”

Stephen McLarnon, Chief Executive, Healthdaq, said:

“We at Healthdaq are proud to have been part of the effort to deliver on this important workforce stabilisation and agency cost-saving initiative led by the Department on behalf of HSCNI. The award brings well deserved recognition to a team that has worked tirelessly to achieve measurable and impactful results. Congratulations to all.”

We are thrilled to announce that our innovative subscription-based recruitment model has been shortlisted for the 2025 HSJ Partnership Awards for Staffing Solution of the Year.

At a time of increasing fiscal pressure, our partnership with the Western Trust has been instrumental in significantly reducing their agency spend while creating a more stable, sustainable workforce.

By implementing a subscription-based recruitment service that provides unlimited digital recruitment advertising, job fairs, ATS & CRM user licences, and expert processing support for a fixed monthly fee, we have helped the Trust reduce and, in some areas, eliminate – its reliance on costly agency staffing.

Our award-winning team brings expertise across recruitment marketing and process optimisation as well as technology designed exclusively for health and social care employers. This subscription model not only accelerates hiring but also provides proactive support, personalisation, and easy access to expert assistance – helping employers streamline recruitment and remove administrative burdens.

With forecasted savings of more than £3.75m on agency expenditure in 2024/25, our partnership with Western Trust has delivered a remarkable return on investment for the Trust and being shortlisted underscores our commitment to providing long-term recruitment solutions that improve operational efficiency and enhance patient care.

Our goal is to extend this proven model to other NHS organisations looking to take back control of their recruitment strategy, reduce or eliminate agency reliance, and drive sustainable workforce growth.

The judges commended the health department’s courageous decision to eliminate reliance on agency staff, significantly reducing costs. Their innovative recruitment strategy successfully transitioned over 200 agency workers to permanent roles.

In late 2022, the Department of Health in Northern Ireland began addressing the issue of social work vacancies in its five HSC Trusts, which provide services to children and families. The Department aimed to stabilise the workforce by stopping the use of agency social workers and improving direct recruitment practices. At the start of 2023, over 200 agency social workers were employed in HSC Trusts, particularly in children’s services. Many used agencies due to ineffective recruitment processes, which led to rising costs of £10.2 million in 2022/23.

The Department initiated open recruitment, encouraging agency social workers to apply for permanent posts, but initially, few responded. Simultaneously, it accelerated the recruitment of newly qualified social workers by engaging with universities. Healthdaq, a digital recruitment platform, was used to streamline the process, allowing students to register and manage their applications.

By June 2023, all agency social workers had left HSC Trusts, with 96 being appointed to permanent roles, mostly in children’s services. Additionally, 137 newly qualified social workers were hired by July 2023. Agency social worker costs were drastically reduced from £10.2 million to £3.2 million in 2023/24, and by 2024/25, no agency social workers were being employed.

Congratulations to all the runners-up in the hotly contested category.

• NHS England
• Civil Service
• Dwr Cymru Welsh Water
• Police Now
• Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Trust
• Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council
• Wigan Council

This article originally appeared on the Personnel Today website – Read the full article.

Last evening in London, Healthdaq® (formerly known as HealthSectorTalent®) won Talent Acquisition Partner of the Year 2023 for a record second time at the prestigious Personnel Today Awards.

Healthdaq is tackling the fact that social care is finding it hard to attract recruits because there are many higher-paid roles in the wider economy that are also perceived as less demanding. Working with one of Northern Ireland’s health and social care trusts, Healthdaq’s objective was to attract more people into the occupation who otherwise would never have considered it.

Healthdaq helped design, build and manage a talent attraction strategy incorporating a series of recruitment open days held across the Trust’s main localities. In addition to managing the recruitment advertising across traditional and digital channels, Healthdaq provided the Trust’s relatively small in-house recruitment team with transactional and technological support to enhance the recruitment experience for both candidates and the hiring managers.

Given the estimated 165,000 vacant posts in social care across the UK and having increased by 50% between 2021 and 2022 – the highest in a decade according to the King’s Fund, the results delivered by Healthdaq in partnership with the Trust are outstanding.

In total, the campaign delivered 974 expressions of interest and 302 formal applications, a level of reach into the Trust’s community that was far beyond what had been achieved in the past. A 162 candidates attended the recruitment events – a massive 700% increase on the proceeding two-month period, where normal recruitment processes were used. The number of candidates that received a conditional offer was 157 – a success rate of 97 per cent and 129 candidates have since been appointed exceeding the target of 60 hires by 114 per cent.

“Working with a health Trust, they secured a record number of job applications, significantly reduced candidate withdrawals and made a dramatic improvement in the average cost to hire. “Compelling” said one Judge.”

– Personnel Today Awards 2023.

“The positive impact on service users results from the increased number of staff available to commenced employment in the shortest time possible, particularly for those who have been awaiting a package of care and specifically in hard-to-fill rural rotas”.

– Southern HSC Trust.

“We pride ourselves in being different, but then everyone says that. What’s different about Healthdaq is that regardless of how many candidates this particular client recruited as part of this campaign, they paid the same fixed cost. As a Company, we believe every employer can successfully manage their own recruitment with a little bit of help and support. That’s why we provide both single and complementing services to employers that span the entire recruitment lifecycle enabling employers to pick’n’mix the services that they need. Given that this is our second time winning Talent Acquisition Partner of the Year, 2021 and now 2023, we know that what we offer is different and that it works for employers.”

– Stephen McLarnon, Chief Executive, Healthdaq.