Firm offers carers £2k to settle in West district

CARERS are being offered a £2,000 ‘golden hello’ to help address recruitment issues in Bath and North East Somerset.

With around one in seven jobs vacant – “moderate” compared to the nearly one in three elsewhere – Virgin Care is working with nine national and local recruitment agencies to fill them.

Managing director Val Scrase said the cash incentive can be used to attract staff who may be with agencies but struggle with the high cost of living in the area.

She told a Bath and North East Somerset Council scrutiny panel meeting on October 15: “We can offer something that actually attracts people to settle with us. We don’t have people join for a month and then leave again.

“It’s very much to support people to commit to B&NES and stay with us, and then we can help and support them with their career pathway.”

Suzanne Westhead, the council’s adult social care director, has pointed to more deep-rooted issues in the sector and said imaginative approaches are needed to attract new workers.

“Occupational therapists and physios are really hard to recruit. Social workers are hard to recruit. Frontline carers are hard to recruit,” she said.

“Across the South West we’ve been talking about what else we can do with the universities to improve recruitment.

“We need to bring in a new market of individuals into the system. What we found before when we looked at the recruitment was that people were moving around social care.

“The retention rates weren’t good but people were staying. Now they’re not staying in the sector.”

She said the council was looking at reaching out to people on benefits and parents who could work while their children are at school.

It has launched the Proud to Care campaign and is currently advertising 29 jobs. Visit jobs.bathnes.gov.uk for more information.