Innovation reaps rewards

By Petrina Wright | Posted: Thursday July 20, 2023

Presbyterian Support Southland’s (PSS) response to the global nursing shortage over the past few years is now bearing fruit due to its creative ways of attracting and retaining staff.

PSS’ Enliven service had faced three challenging years operating its care homes with a significantly reduced nursing staff, employing a mixture of creative interim solutions, collaboration with training entities and a committed team to overcome the obstacles.

Enliven typically employed 40 registered nurses (RNs) across its four care homes. At times last year this was significantly reduced. Now it’s anticipated that the Enliven facilities which had been required to close would open to their full capacity in coming months due to the successes in recruiting.

Enliven director Carol Riddle said Enliven had always relied on international nurses to staff its care homes, as New Zealand nurses were not typically attracted to the sector. And, with the COVID-19 pandemic and New Zealand’s borders closed, Enliven had been unable to access this labour market.

The nursing shortage in aged care was further compounded by nurses choosing to leave the sector to work in the public health system which offered better pay conditions, or relocating to Australia, attracted by higher wages and immediate residency.

Carol said as a result of a reduced nursing staff, the team had been required to make changes to how it operated to minimise any impact on staff and residents.

“It was important to us that our current staff could manage their workload and ensure the clinical safety of our residents.”

Twelve beds in Vickery Court were temporarily closed as a result and would remain closed until new registered nurses came on board. It was hoped these beds would be reopened in the coming months.

In addition, Southern District Health Board supported Peacehaven for six months by seconding four nurses to keep the psychogeriatric unit operational while staff were recruited.

Our admissions were also carefully reviewed prior to acceptance to ensure staff could provide the appropriate level of care, Carol said.

“It was important we maintained the high clinical standards of Enliven.”

In response to the staffing shortage, Enliven undertook a variety of measures in an attempt to attract, recruit and retain its nurses.

Carol said Enliven identified that some of the care workers on staff were overseas-qualified RNs. So, Enliven partnered with Otago Polytechnic to make it easier for those staff to become New Zealand-qualified nurses.

Otago Polytechnic runs the Competence Assessment Programme (CAP) which international registered nurses are required to complete in order to gain their New Zealand registration.

Otago Polytechnic staff worked with the Southern Institute of Technology (SIT) to run the course in Southland via a virtual platform. SIT also agreed to provide a clinical tutor to support the nurses’ six-week placement in an Enliven care home.

In addition, the PSS board agreed to increase the RN pay rate and allowances to remain competitive within the aged care sector, although no funding had been allocated for this.

“The cost to the organisation of doing this is huge, [but] we needed to be competitive to attract new staff.”

Enliven also supported its international nurses to make the transition into work in New Zealand as easy as possible, including providing welcome settlement packs and temporary accommodation.

PSS people and capability lead Tracy Harris said they had applied to Immigration NZ and were granted Accredited Employer Status so they could invite employees to apply for an accredited employee work visa (AEWV).

“…to date the most successful way of sourcing overseas qualified RNs into PSS has been the AEWV pathway along with the support we have received from Immigration NZ to ensure the work visa applications are prioritised as health care workers.”

Since then, the Government had given RNs immediate pathway to residency to encourage them to choose to work in New Zealand.

Carol said the change was positive for the industry going forward.

All of the measures introduced, as well as a dedicated nationwide RN recruitment campaign, had meant Enliven was now in a stronger position, she said.

“Acknowledgement must go to the managers and clinical managers and coordinators at our care homes who had to fill the gaps by working on the floor doing RN shifts, sleep overs, and weekend work. Without their commitment we would not have been able to keep our doors open.”