11 November 2019

The hourly rate paid to Bank Nurses working in a number of clinical areas increased as of Sunday 10 November.

On top of the Working Time Directive 12.07% uplift currently received, Bank Nurses taking up shifts in A&E and Intensive Care, as well anyone opting for shifts on wards and departments highlighted as areas of concern for staffing, are now given an additional 12.93% extra per hour.

This is an uplift of 25% above Agenda For Change rates for every shift, and is the comparable to the highest rate provided by any other local Trust.

Barbara Beal, Director of Nursing at SaTH, said: “The decision to approve this enhancement comes as a result of direct feedback from our teams on the frontline. Together we hope to see the following benefits:

  • Increase quality to patients within our care
  • Potential improvements to skill mix.
  • Increase Bank fill rates
  • Attract nurses from local areas to join our Bank
  • Reduce costs by removing Tier 4 and 5 agency staff.

“Our workforce challenges at SaTH are no secret. Due to us not having as many substantive nurses as we would like, we are experiencing significant challenges with the retention of staff due to the constant requirement to move staff from their usual place of work to more vulnerable areas. By enhancing our Bank offer we hope in time to address some of these issues.”

It has also been agreed to create a Bank Pool of nurses that can be directed to ‘hot spots’ each day.

This new pool of Bank nurses – eight at RSH and eight at PRH – will cover areas with short notice issues, such as sickness.

Rhia Boyode, Workforce Director at SaTH, said: “The views of our staff play a key role in our recruitment and retention strategy. We have listened to their feedback and are hopeful that the introduction of these schemes will encourage staff to work in the areas where there is a greater number of shifts to be filled.”

In order to increase the use of Bank shifts over agency shifts, there are a number of initiatives already in place at SaTH, including:

  • Improving and increasing the number of text alerts to Bank staff to encourage shifts to be filled
  • A campaign has been launched to encourage current substantive SaTH staff to join the Bank
  • All newly appointed staff to SaTH will be automatically enrolled onto the Bank and will have to ‘opt out’.
  • Weekly and monthly pay options.