Care homes boss offers £2k bonus to recruit more nurses
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A FRESH drive to recruit more nurses has seen a local care home operator offer up a £2000 welcome bonus.
Parklands Care Homes, which owns and operates nine homes in Highland and Moray and manages a further two in Keith and Cullen, is aiming to boost its team of in-house nurses.
And the golden hello for new starts comes on top of a recent pay rise for all Parklands employees, with nurses now being offered £20 an hour for day shifts and £21 for night shifts.
Full time nurses working a 37.5 hour week can expect to earn around £39,000, with higher rates for nurses working night shifts.
Parklands wants to eliminate the use of expensive agencies to fill nursing vacancies.
Elsewhere in the group, carers are now being offered a minimum of £12 an hour, 10 per cent higher than the Scottish Government’s social care rate of £10.90, and care shift leaders can expect to earn between £14.50 and £15 an hour.
The £2000 incentive comes on Nurses Day (May 12).
Parklands managing director Ron Taylor said: “The UK social care sector has a severe shortage of nurses, in particular, and this means the sector is heavily reliant on expensive agencies. However, agency staff often come to us for short periods, lacking in-depth knowledge about our residents and their medical history.
“At Parklands, our goal is to make sure we have a dependable and consistent team of nurses. By increasing salaries and offering incentives for new nurses, we aim to recruit highly motivated, experienced nurses who can deliver consistent, high quality care to our residents. It’s a win for our nurses and a win for our residents.”
He added: “The past few months have been tough for everyone, with every day costs becoming unmanageable for many. We’ve seen our own costs soar and the entire sector is going through the most difficult time I can ever recall. Nevertheless, it’s right that we reward our hard-working staff and we’ve worked hard to ensure we can offer everyone in the Parklands team more this year.”
Parklands has also partnered with the financial well-being platform Wagestream, which allows employees to access up to 40 per cent of their accrued wages at any time of the month in the event of unplanned expenses.
Jo Douglass, Parklands nursing manager for Moray said: “Working in a care home offers so many rewards, both emotionally and financially."
Shiona Martin, a nurse at Lynemore in Grantown said: “It's the best job I've had. I've been a community nurse, I've worked on wards, I’ve done a variety of different roles. No two days are the same. It's fun, it can be stressful - some jobs are - but the skills that you'll learn are skills that you can take with you.”
