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Nurse retention: would a bonus scheme make you stay?

Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust is exploring a scheme where nurses paid 10% of their salary at six months and again after two years of employment

Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust is exploring a scheme where nurses paid 10% of their salary at six months and again after two years of employment

Mid and South Essex Foundation Trust exploring scheme where nurses are paid 10% of their salary at six months
Picture: iStock

An NHS trust is considering giving nurses bonuses in a bid to keep them working at the organisation for more than two years.

Possible ‘premium retention payment’ scheme aims to tackle nurse vacancies

Mid and South Essex Foundation Trust (MSEFT) is exploring a scheme described as a ‘premium retention payment’, which would see nurses paid 10% of their salary at six months and again after two years of employment at the trust.

If nurses were to leave within a year of receiving either payment they would have to repay the bonus.

A spokesperson for MSEFT told Nursing Standard it was just one of the recruitment options being explored as the trust tries to tackle nursing vacancies.

A report from the trust’s management executive said it would need to be clear which staff groups the scheme would apply to as there were ‘many hard to recruit areas’.

It added that retention payments could ‘lessen patient safety risks and improve staff health and wellbeing’. So far recruitment work at the trust has seen nursing vacancies drop, with 200 more nurses working in the organisation in November 2022 compared to November 2021, according to figures in the report.

Nurses might apply for bonus-based jobs, but unprepared for some clinical settings

But senior emergency department (ED) nurse Christina Harrison, who helped implement a retention scheme across the One Devon integrated care board (ICB), warned nurses might apply for jobs based on the incentive without being prepared for the pressures of certain clinical settings.

An NHS trust is considering a ‘premium payment scheme’ to retain nurses
Picture: iStock

‘It takes a certain type of resilience and stamina to work in some specialist areas, like EDs. A more suitable approach would be to offer this to all qualified staff, including allied health professionals, particularly if it’s internally funded,’ she said.

Ms Harrison helped implement ‘stay interviews’ across the ICB’s trusts , where nurses have regular one-to-one career catch ups with managers to resolve reasons they might want to resign.

Important for managers to create better working environment for nursing staff

She stressed that the cost of recruitment was far higher than retention and it was important for managers to create a better working environment to keep staff from leaving.

Experts have long warned of an exodus of nurses from the health service. A recent analysis by the RCN found tens of thousands of nurses at ‘early stages in their careers’ left the profession in the past five years due to burnout, poor pay and a negative workplace culture.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council’s annual register data report showed some 25,000 nurses left the UK register in the year to March 2022.

Meanwhile, the latest NHS Digital data shows there are 43,619 nurse vacancies in the NHS in England.


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