New research suggests there is a link between high pressure jobs and heart disease risks in women.

The research found that heart disease risks in women increased if they felt under pressure at work.

The study looked at the heart health of more than 12,000 women working as nurses.

June Davison, cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said:

“Feeling under pressure at work means stressed employees may pick up some unhealthy bad habits and add to their risk of developing heart problems.

“Pressurized workers may reach for cigarettes, snack foods and alcohol to make themselves feel better.

“If you feel under pressure you should try and tackle it in a positive way and get active during work hours. Using the stairs and walking some of the way to work could help act as a stress buster and boost heart health too. We know this is a problem and have produced our Think fit! Think well! guide to address mental well-being for employees.”

The study was published by Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

A college in Oxford is helping to reduce unemployment in the county thanks to an innovative approach to finding jobs for students and the long-term unemployed.

Oxford and Cherwell Valley College’s Jobfinder scheme is matching its own apprentices with employers and helping to find jobs for those out of work who have received training from the college, especially so for those out of work for more than six months. This is thanks to funding from the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS).

“I wouldn’t want to refer to the project as a recruitment agency but if you think about the services offered by the very best agencies, we have similar aims,” explains Neil Edwards, the college’s business enterprise manager.

Oxford and Cherwell Valley has a strong track record in delivering high quality vocational skills training, holds the Learning and Skills Council’s sought-after Training Quality Standard certification and served more than 500 employers of all sizes last year, including BMW and Oxford’s University’s colleges.

But as unemployment has risen it has proven harder to find would-be apprentices sustainable employment to allow them to continue to take advantage of college-based apprenticeship training. This has prompted a rethink on how the college can better help match aspiring apprentices to employers.

“We have around 50 young people already training on Programme-Led Pathway Apprenticeships, mainly in the motor vehicle and plumbing sectors” said Mr Edwards, “They are our priority group because we have to match them with employers by September to enable them to continue training. But we are also working with Job Centre Plus clients from across the county, running a wide range of short courses for people out of work.”

“We thought about how we might be able to more actively match these people with the employers we serve.”

The answer is to recruit two people – with the help of LSIS funding – to conduct in-depth interviews with all the candidates trained by the college and then take the resulting profiles to employer groups through one-to-one meetings and events so that aspirations are precisely matched.

The college is also offering recruitment support, such as interview tips and CV preparation, for these candidates, who may be entering the job market for the first time.

In an effort to win over employers to the scheme the college will not make any charge for placing candidates with employers – at least whilst it has LSIS funding – and the support offered will not end when a candidate is matched to an employer as Mr Edwards explained: “If a Job Centre Plus client has come to us for a short course in something like security training, once we have matched them with a new employer we can then offer them a longer-term NVQ qualification in the subject. It is all about how we can offer support for candidates and employers at every stage of the process.”

The scheme is one of several awarded to innovative schemes by LSIS in the first round of bidding for its flexibility and innovation fund. The fund is aimed at fostering innovative ideas which can produce results to benefit the learning and skills sector nationwide.

Jobfinder is already up and running with college HR advisor Nicky Harris kicking-off the candidate interview process until the two new arrivals are in post by the end of this month. As well as paying wages for the new recruits the £90,000 provided by LSIS will help publicise the scheme and subsidise some of the additional college costs to get the scheme operational.

“We’re confident that this scheme will make a difference and we will happily share our experience of what worked well and also any operational concerns, so that similar organisations can replicate it across the country,” added Mr Edwards.

LSIS recently opened the second round of bidding for the flexibility and innovation fund, for more details visit www.lsis.org.uk