Health chiefs are setting up a dedicated project to attract more workers from ethnic minorities and people with disabilities into the NHS.

The POSH (Promoting Opportunities in Health and Social Care) project will target schools with predominantly ethnic minority students in a bid to swell NHS ranks to reflect the population's ethnic make-up in the Bradford district.

Bradford Health Partnership, which consists of the district's four Primary Care Trusts, Airedale NHS Trust and Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, has won £120,000 of funding from Bradford Council's B-Equal initiative for the project.

Project manager Sabiya Khan said: "The aim of the project is to break down barriers that black and ethnic minorities and people with disabilities may have accessing jobs, careers and professions within the NHS and social care sector.

"Education is an issue in regards to black minority ethnic groups. Attainment needs to be higher. Many young people from these communities are not achieving their potential.

"Nursing as a profession, for example, is perceived as a cultural barrier by some Muslims because parents may not wish their daughters and young woman to nurse male patients."

The health service across Bradford offers 271 different positions from catering and administration to medical roles, and health chiefs hope POSH will encourage disabled people and ethnic minority groups to explore some of these opportunities.

POSH plans to make a training tool for human resource managers, using youngsters and their parents from the Bradford area.

The project will work with some 'key' secondary schools to develop a coaching scheme which pairs up students with healthcare professionals and coaches youngsters for a year through work-shadowing and mentoring.

Mrs Khan said: "Because this pilot project in schools is only funded until March 2005, it will just be for black minority ethnic students. But it could be rolled out later on, opening doors for everybody."

The project has already attracted more than 20 responses from an advertising campaign in Urdu and Punjabi on Radio Ramadan and hopes to develop an access course at the University of Bradford tailored for people who want to work in the NHS.