The Guardian picks up some interesting approaches to retaining staff with the many benefits that this brings.
£15,000 bonuses for social workers in West Berkshire! But frontline care workers will never get that sort of money as a bonus and whats wrong with paying people properly in the first place? So much time and money are spent on advertising, interviewing, training and re-training over and over again with little long-term vision. Often from experience that care homes that look after staff in every way have a lower turnover. Skills for Care devotes a whole section and considerable resources to this issue
NESCHA, in conjunction with the Tees Valley Alliance, was very close some years ago to a recruitment scheme as set out in this article and run by Dimensions. We had proposed to the Tees Safeguarding Board similar ‘auditions’/interviews with service users and carers, in order that applicants selected could be screened (DBS and qualifications check), given some initial training and then put on to a ‘register’ that employers, including micro employers looking for personal assistants, could look to. The scheme needed some funding and there was clear interest from the authorities but owing to hesitation, for medium-term reasons, from two areas the scheme didn’t come off. We wonder if the time has come to look at such a scheme again?