NHS employer · Cambridge, East of England

Nursing careers at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust is a mental health trust based in Cambridge, East of England, organisation code RT1. Below: what the published data says about this organisation, what its type means for a nursing caseload, and where the courses that feed it are taught.

Mental health trustEngland
Mental health trust Organisation type ODS code RT1
£32,073 Band 5 starting salary England, 2026/27 scale
Not published CQC rating Not in the open dataset for this organisation
Not published Staff survey response rate Not in the open dataset for this organisation
Not published Nursing staff Organisation-level workforce data is not in the open dataset yet
4,302 Staff overall Full-time equivalent, all staff groups, 31 December 2025

What working here is like

A mental health trust runs inpatient units, community mental health teams, crisis and home treatment services, child and adolescent services, and often learning disability and forensic services. Mental health nursing is the dominant nursing workforce in these organisations, supporting recovery through medication management, structured activity and a trusting relationship built quickly with each patient.

Learning disability nursing also has an established presence in mental health and specialist organisations, working alongside psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and occupational therapists to reduce barriers to independent living. Both roles rely on being trained to recognise the risk of self-harm or harm to others, and on the same kind of therapeutic relationship, over what is often a longer arc than an acute admission.

None of that is specific to Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust — it is what the organisation type tells you, and it is the part that reliably holds. The parts that vary between two organisations of the same type are the size of each ward or team, how the preceptorship year is structured, how much band 6 progression is built into the establishment, and how far apart the sites are. Those are questions for the recruitment page and for the informal visit that most nursing teams will happily arrange before you apply. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust’s own website is the authoritative source for current vacancies and department structure.

Organisation type
Mental health trust
Based in
Cambridge
Region
East of England
NHS region
East of England
Nation
England
ODS code
RT1
Pay scale that applies
Agenda for Change 2026/27, England

Nursing roles employed here

Based on what mental health trusts run rather than on a published staff list: these are the professions whose services this kind of organisation provides. Each page covers the caseload, the pay ladder and where the local courses are.

The organisation as a whole

Staff group totals as published, for context on the figures above.

Published staff group totals for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust
Staff group Full-time equivalent Headcount As at
All staff groups 4,302 4,794 31 December 2025
Ambulance staff 18.3 20 31 December 2025
Scientific, therapeutic & technical staff 811.8 956 31 December 2025

Where it is, and who trains near it

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust sits in Cambridge, East of England. Geography matters in nursing recruitment, because pre-registration courses carry a large block of supervised clinical practice and those placements are commissioned with the trusts and boards nearest the university. Students placed with an organisation know its systems, its staff and its patients before they graduate, and a substantial share of newly qualified appointments go to people who were placed there. 1 university in the East of England runs approved nursing courses, training nursing associates among others.

Pay is a national question rather than a local one: Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust pays the England Agenda for Change rates for 2026/27, the same as every other NHS employer in the nation. What does vary between employers is everything around the salary: how long a rotation lasts, how much protected time you get for supervision and continuing professional development, whether band 6 progression is planned into the establishment, and how far you will drive between sites.

Universities in the East of England

The providers whose placement circuits are most likely to include this organisation.

Other NHS organisations in the East of England

The realistic alternatives if you are looking for a first post in this area — they pay the same bands, so the difference is the caseload.

How the pay ladder works here

The same four steps apply at every NHS employer; what differs is how quickly the posts come up.

£28,392 Band 4 · Newly qualified First post after registration, for roles that start at band 4 (e.g. nursing associates).
£32,073 Band 5 · Newly qualified First post after registration, usually rotational.
£39,959 Band 6 · Specialist Typically two to four years in; a defined clinical specialty.
£49,387 Band 7 · Advanced or team lead Clinical leadership, complex caseload, supervision.
£57,528 Band 8a · Consultant or service lead Service-wide responsibility or consultant practice.

Next steps

Where this page’s data comes from