Find carers and nurses in Suffolk

Recruiting in Suffolk

Finding staff for rural rounds and coastal homes in Suffolk

The hardest part of recruiting in Suffolk is rarely the job itself. It is matching a carer to a round when the work is spread across villages between Haverhill, Sudbury, Stowmarket and the coast. Someone living in Lowestoft looks north to Great Yarmouth as readily as south to Ipswich, while Haverhill and Newmarket sit close to the Cambridgeshire border.

On the east side the working age population is shrinking. In East Suffolk the number of people aged 35 to 49 fell by almost 16 per cent between the last two censuses, so coastal homes and agencies around Felixstowe, Woodbridge and Aldeburgh are fishing in a smaller pond than they used to.

Nursing recruitment has its own geography. Ipswich Hospital, West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds and the James Paget at Gorleston each draw nurses from their own corner of the county, and homes nearby compete with the NHS for the same people. Looking first at carers within reach of your villages, rather than across the whole county, is the most practical way to cover a rural round.

84% of the inspected care employers in Suffolk are rated Good or Outstanding by the CQC, close to the 82% across the East and in line with England as a whole (85%).