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Trust offering up to £5k relocation package to tempt nurses away from London

Relocation packages worth up to £5,000 are being offered to nurses in London, in an effort to tempt them away from the capital and into Dorset.
Recruitment advert

A new advertising campaign on the city’s tube trains is targeting registered nurses with a simple message: ‘Leave all this behind…become a nurse in Dorset’.


The Dorset Healthcare University NHS Foundation Trust is running tube advertisements,
to draw London-based nurses to the area. 

‘Cheaper than London’

Incentives have already helped to attract 51 new starters to Dorset Healthcare University NHS Foundation Trust since last April, according to its directors.

‘The area is cheaper than London,’ said deputy director of nursing and quality Cara Southgate, explaining why the trust is focusing on the capital in a campaign running until March.

‘We thought there might be more people looking for change – we wanted to spark that thought on the way to work.’ 

Diverse roles 

The relocation payments will help to cover removal and other associated costs to the popular tourist destination, and are available to new staff who are appointed to posts that have been designated as ‘hard to recruit to’, where they meet the eligibility criteria. 

The trust has a vacancy rate of about 9%, a percentage point lower than the national average.

Ms Southgate, who took up position as a ward sister when she moved to the area from Essex ten years ago, said the trust had ‘real diversity’ to offer in roles and specialisms.

Life outside work 

‘There are real opportunities in Dorset to further their careers. It is not a sleepy place, it is an exciting, invigorating place and somewhere to have a good life outside of work.’

She added that a one-bedroom flat in the county could cost around £500 per calendar month, at least half the price of most equivalent rentals in London.

Trust senior clinical nurse Abby Webb said: ‘You can be in the conurbation of Poole and Bournemouth in 10 minutes but, equally, 10 minutes from where I live I can be in the countryside – away from everybody.'

Competition growing

Nearly one in five nursing posts in London is already vacant, according to RCN research, which last year revealed a ‘critical’ shortage of nurses in the capital.

With trusts across England struggling to fill nursing vacancies, competition is hotting up between organisations attempting to increase their allure to prospective employees.

In 2016, Humber NHS Foundation Trust offered new band five nurses a £1,000 ‘golden hello’ as part of a recruitment drive.

Affordable housing 

Similarly, Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust offered employees a £200 bonus if they recommended a friend as a staff nurse who was then recruited.

At last year’s Congress, RCN UK safety representatives’ committee member Neil Thompson warned nurses were having to move further away from work to secure affordable housing.

‘Many of the idyllic tourist areas have exactly the same issues [as major cities], because much of the previously affordable housing is snapped up as second homes.’


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