NHS employer · Chesterfield, East Midlands

Nursing careers at Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is an acute trust based in Chesterfield, East Midlands, organisation code RFS. 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.

Acute trustEngland
Acute trust Organisation type ODS code RFS
£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
3,821.6 Staff overall Full-time equivalent, all staff groups, 31 December 2025

What working here is like

An acute trust runs hospital-based care: inpatient wards, operating theatres, emergency and critical care, diagnostics and hospital outpatient clinics. For a nurse that means a caseload defined by admissions rather than by referrals — you see people at the point they are most unwell, you work towards discharge, and your day is shaped by ward rounds, board rounds and the pressure on beds.

It is also where most newly qualified nursing posts sit. A band 5 post commonly begins inside a structured preceptorship programme, and it is common for that first year to move you through more than one ward or clinical area — often general medicine, surgery and a specialist area — before you settle into a specialty. Expect in-house training, a large department with senior colleagues on the same site, and, in most acute trusts, a shift pattern that covers nights and weekends.

None of that is specific to Chesterfield Royal Hospital 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. Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust’s own website is the authoritative source for current vacancies and department structure.

Organisation type
Acute trust
Based in
Chesterfield
Region
East Midlands
NHS region
Midlands
Nation
England
ODS code
RFS
Pay scale that applies
Agenda for Change 2026/27, England

Nursing roles employed here

Based on what acute 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 Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Staff group Full-time equivalent Headcount As at
All staff groups 3,821.6 4,510 31 December 2025
Ambulance staff 0.9 1 31 December 2025
Scientific, therapeutic & technical staff 537.4 634 31 December 2025

Where it is, and who trains near it

Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust sits in Chesterfield, East Midlands, within the Midlands NHS region. 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. No university in the dataset is recorded as running an approved nursing course in this area, so placements here are likely to come from providers further afield.

Pay is a national question rather than a local one: Chesterfield Royal Hospital 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.

Other NHS organisations in the East Midlands

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.

NHS organisations in the East Midlands
Organisation Type Based in
Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust Community trust Chesterfield
Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Mental health trust Derby
East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust Ambulance service Nottingham
Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Acute trust Kettering
Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust Mental health trust Leicester
Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust Community trust Lincoln
Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust Mental health trust Lincoln
Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust Acute trust Northampton
Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Mental health trust Kettering
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust Acute trust Nottingham
Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Mental health trust Nottingham
Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Acute trust Sutton-in-Ashfield
United Lincolnshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust Acute trust Lincoln
University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust Acute trust Derby
University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust Acute trust Leicester

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