Overcoming Staffing Challenges of South West Care Homes in England

The south-west of England is home to a significant percentage of the country’s care homes, positioned second only to the south-east and jointly with the north-west. There are many factors that contribute to the staffing challenges of South West care homes.

With such large numbers of facilities of this kind – particularly in locations such as Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Bristol, and Taunton – comes a high demand for specialised care staff.

However, the availability of suitable candidates does not currently meet that urgent requirement. 14,500 vacant posts were recorded in the year 2022/23 alone, with a sector turnover of 32.2%.

So, what are the challenges facing recruiting staff for Southwest Care Homes, and what hiring approaches are likely to be most successful and beneficial to employers? In this article, the healthcare staffing experts at Cucumber provide answers to these questions.

What Staffing Challenges do South West Care Homes face?

There are three key challenges that add a level of complexity to staffing for residential care facilities. It’s vital for organisations of this kind to effectively address these issues to ensure the best quality of care. These challenges are:

High turnover

The healthcare industry across the UK must constantly contend with high turnover rates in a wide range of disciplines and sectors – including residential care, as we mentioned earlier.

Turnover often occurs due to overwork and burnout, which also often leads to a drop in quality of care, as staff who attempt to continue working while struggling with these issues may not be able to perform to acceptable standards.

Skills shortages

Around 70% of care home residents in the UK suffer from dementia – and other complex needs are almost invariably present too. The treatment of individuals with conditions of these kinds requires the support and attention of specially qualified care staff.

To that end, it can be a major challenge to locate and engage the right number of individuals holding all of the correct qualifications, certificates and background checks for each vacant position to ensure the safety and quality of care that is necessary.

Regulatory compliance

Not only is the need for properly trained and qualified staff vital for patient or resident safety, but it is also key to ensuring compliance with all industry regulations.

Organisations and facilities that fail to fill care home vacancies with appropriately qualified staff leave themselves open to legal action, severe penalties and potential suspension of operations.

Our Approach to Staffing

As highly experienced staffing specialists operating within the UK medical and care sectors, Cucumber’s approach to successfully filling care home vacancies has been developed in direct response to the challenges explored above.

We deliver a thorough recruitment process, ensuring that all qualifications and background checks are valid, relevant and up-to-date. We also provide continuous training and development, with qualifications offered in specialist areas such as dementia care.

We also offer flexible staffing options, whether employers require permanent or temporary staff on a full-time, part-time or shift basis. Cucumber can provide these services at exceptionally short notice to reflect the often urgent need for suitable candidates.

Benefits for Care Homes

Engagement with Cucumber Recruitment can open up a wide range of benefits to residential care facilities and employers.

Our service can help to reduce the burden of staffing processes and administration by enabling organisations to outsource it to our specialists.

It also provides a consistent quality of care, as the qualifications and training of all of the staff on our thousands-strong database of medical professionals – based across the UK – are kept consistently up to date and will always be relevant to the position you are planning to fill.

The solution is highly cost-effective, too, due to the flexibility of our staffing options and services, which can provide more control over a company’s expenses, making us more budget-friendly than having to pay full-time wages.

Cucumber’s services also serve to alleviate managerial and administrative pressure, as we take care of the process from start to finish, including recruitment, training, payroll and more.

How to Get Started with Your New, Convenient Staffing Solution

You can learn more about the flexible range of services provided by Cucumber Recruitment right here.

Whether you need to hire nurses, support workers, healthcare assistants, urgent care staff, managers or anyone else, you can be assured that Cucumber’s roster of highly trained and experienced medical professionals will include individuals with just the expertise you require.

We are capable of responding to requests at extremely short notice – so, whatever the role you need to fill, and whatever the time frame with which you need to work – don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team of staffing experts today.

We will be happy to discuss your precise staffing criteria and get to work to match you with your ideal candidates straight away, contact us today to find out more.