NHS nurse recruitment incentives: are golden hellos the answer?
Posted 22 May 2023 - 16:07
Employers are using financial sweeteners to help them stand out from the crowd, as crisis in nurse numbers shows little sign of abating
A number of NHS trusts are ramping up their financial incentives as they battle to attract and retain nursing staff.
The offers include bonuses spread out over two years and relocation packages of up to £8,000.
According to the Guardian newspaper, Humber Teaching Foundation Trust now gives newly-qualified nurses a one-off £3,000 golden hello’, while Cheshire and Wirral Partnership (CWP) is offering a £4,500 payment to nurses joining its mental health and learning disability teams. The £4,500 is paid in three instalments over two years.
Cheshire and Wirral also offers up to £8,000 to clinical staff who live more than 40 miles away and would need to relocate to join the trust. Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and West London NHS Trust are also among employers offering financial incentives.
‘We can’t rely on golden hellos and relocation bonuses to solve the crisis in the nursing workforce’
Patricia Marquis, director, RCN England
Chronic nurse staffing crisis
Employers have for some years been innovating ways to enhance their salary package as they stuggle to attract and keep staff, and there have long been warnings of the scale of the exodus of nurses from the NHS due to poor pay, working conditions and burnout. Many nurses have reported leaving the profession entirely for better paid jobs in shops and bars as they struggle with spiralling living costs.
The health service is grappling with huge workforce shortages, with 43,619 nursing posts currently vacant in England according to its latest data. And the RCN and government at loggerheads over pay, with RCN members preparing to vote on whether to renew strike action after rejecting the latest pay offer.
RCN director for England Patricia Marquis said the crisis was forcing some employers to use ad hoc incentives.
She said: ‘While it may help to attract nurses to those trusts deciding to do this, it is simply moving the problem from one trust to the next and creating a false sense of security that does not address the real problem.
‘We can’t rely on golden hellos and relocation bonuses to solve the crisis in the nursing workforce. Nurses must receive the pay rise they deserve after it has fallen behind in the last ten years.’
Employers’ response to market pressures
The Department of Health and Social Care said trusts are able to offer incentives of up to 30% of basic pay in areas where market pressures could prevent recruitment and retention of staff.
A spokesperson said there were now record numbers of staff in the NHS, including 12,300 more nurses than last year.
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