Bosses at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust currently spend £600,000 on temporary agency workers and have 300 positions to fill
A hospital battling desperate staff shortages are trying to lure workers from other trusts by offering them iPads, cash and a cut-price house.
Bosses at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust currently spend £600,000 on temporary agency workers.
They claim they need to fill 300 full-time jobs for nurses and midwives across their two hospitals in Kent.
In a bid to plug the gaps the trust are considering sending personal notes to every registered nurse within a 20 mile radius of their hospitals.
And in a bid to attract staff from their rivals they hope to offer ‘golden hello’ payments, iPads, free gym memberships and subsidised housing.
Loyalty bonuses could also be paid to the existing 2,104 nurses and midwives along with better overtime rates.
In a report to the trust’s board, Paul Bentley, head of workforce and communications, said they need to “capitalise” on the struggles of other hospitals.
He said: “We have had recent success with a local job fair for nursing staff and plan to run similar initiatives throughout next year to attract staff and capitalise naturally on our current neighbour’s situation.
“To deliver this level of recruitment, even with greater use of social media and recruitment campaigns, the national shortage of registered nurses being experienced across the UK necessitates greater creativity and tenacity than has hitherto been exercised.”
The trust is responsible for Maidstone Hospital and Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Pembury.
