One in 10 Adult Mental Health roles vacant as UK competition bites

Wednesday 21 July 2021

One in 10 positions in Jersey's Adult Mental Health Services are currently vacant, with the island struggling to compete in a highly competitive marketplace.

Of the 307 full-time-equivalent positions in the branch of Health and Community Services, there are currently 46 vacancies (equivalent to 15%), although 13 of these are currently being filled by agency staff.

Sharing the challenges facing the service in the States Assembly on Monday, Assistant Minister Trevor Pointon said that the 46 vacancies included 17 new roles created this year, made up of eight positions in the ‘complex trauma’ team, another eight in the ‘home treatment’ team, and one administrative post dealing with mental health legislation.

He said that the Health Department was confident they would be able to fill the 17 roles, which would make the Adult Mental Health Services “sustainable” and “resilient”.

Pictured: Assistant Minister Deputy Trevor Pointon.

He added: “The problem is that we are working within an atmosphere in which most of our staff are drawn from the UK and they themselves are having extreme difficulty recruiting staff. 

“We are making efforts to fill the vacancies, but it is a difficult process.”

The Deputy said that finding accommodation for newly recruited staff was another challenge.

“Only this morning I learned that a newly appointed consultant psychiatrist is having difficulty finding accommodation. 

“If he was a locum psychiatrist, accommodation would be found for him. We are having this problem and we have to do something to ensure that people coming to the Island, who have no knowledge of it, are assisted with accommodation.”

Deputy Pointon assured Members that Health was training mental health nurses and healthcare workers locally, but finding fully-qualified, specialist candidates was “difficult across the board”.