Covid: North Yorkshire nurses offered 20% pay boost to cover absences
- Published
York and Scarborough Hospital Trust said it expected August to be a challenging month for staffing
Nurses in North Yorkshire have been offered a 20% pay boost to cover colleagues who are self-isolating, sick or on holiday.
Hospital bosses said the overtime was being offered to help the York and Scarborough trust cope with its worst absence rates since the pandemic began.
These rose above 8% last week, but the trust said there had been a good response to the incentive.
Nurses are being offered the increase until 15 August.
Polly McMeekin, York and Scarborough Hospital Trust's workforce director, said it was the "toughest period of time we have experienced during the pandemic from a staffing perspective".
She said the trust was "trying really hard" not to ask staff to cancel their annual leave and it was hoped the incentive, which had already seen a "real leap in uptake", would help to alleviate the situation.
The trust is also piloting a scheme where double-vaccinated staff do not have to isolate if they are "pinged" by the NHS Covid-19 app as long as they meet other criteria such as testing.
Despite the measures, the trust said it still expected August to be a challenging month, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
Wendy Scott, the trust's chief operating officer, said some elective surgery and clinics could be cancelled as a result of staffing pressures.
"We are at a point where we are making decisions about cancelling a relatively small number of elective procedures and routine clinics so we can redeploy staff into clinical areas where there's the greatest need," she said.
The trust said it had also seen a rise in the number of Covid patients in recent weeks, with York Hospital opening a second ward to help meet demand.