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As part of your offer of employment you will be provided with two months free accommodation by East Lancashire Hospitals Trust when you arrive in the UK. For the duration of the two months, you will be assigned to one of 8 properties provided by ELHT that are within the Blackburn or Burnley area of East Lancashire.
You will be living alongside other international colleagues within your assigned accommodation which could be nurses, midwifes or other health professionals. All the properties above contain single occupancy rooms and have shared living, cooking and bathroom facilities.
All the utility bills for each property such as gas, electricity, internet access and council tax are included with this accommodation for the full 2month period.
As all rooms are single occupancy you cannot have any family or friends stay with you in the accommodation provided for your first 2 months in the UK.
We do not recommend bringing your family over to the UK until you have passed your OSCE exam. You must pass your OSCE exam within the first 8 months of your arrival in the UK and you only get 3 attempts to do this. As such you will need to complete regular self-study outside of working hours to be able to give yourself the best chance of passing your exam as soon as possible. We have found that previous international nurses that have brought their families to the UK before they have passed their OSCE exam have struggled to commit the required time for self-study, and this has impacted on their OSCE results.
If you still wish to travel with your family to the UK or you do not wish to take up the offer of the 2 months free accommodation, then you must notify us via your recruitment contact at Jane Lewis. If you do travel with your family to the UK you will need to arrange your own private accommodation to live in, or you can take up the option of the free accommodation and you will need to source private accommodation for your family to live in whilst you move out of your free accommodation.
When you arrive at the airport you will be collected by taxis arranged by Jane Lewis. The taxis will then take you to your assigned property where you will be greeted by a member of ELHT staff. They will give you a tour of the property to help you familiarise yourself with your new surroundings and allow you to ask any questions you may have. You may also be visited by the landlord of the property to introduce themselves and speak with you about the property.
You will be asked to sign an agreement that you will adhere to the expectations set out whilst staying at the property and that you will take good care of the property whilst residing in it.
You will a receive a welcome shop which will be delivered by ASDA which is a UK supermarket. This delivery will contain food and essential items for your first 48 hours in the UK and means you will have time to familiarise yourself with the local area and locate a shop/supermarket you will be able to buy your own food and essentials from going forward.
At your welcome meeting the following day you will also be supplied with 21 meal vouchers by ELHT. These meal vouchers are to the value of £5 each and can be redeemed at the staff restaurants at either Burnley or Blackburn Hospital.
If you are allocated to any property except the staff residence you will also receive a delivery of bedding. This bedding will be yours to keep and take with you once you leave the property. For those allocated to the staff residence, bedding is already provided at the accommodation and as this is the property of ELHT you are not able to take this with you when you leave.
There is an expectation that when you are living within the accommodations provided by ELHT that you adhere to some basic rules and guidelines:
- Keep all properties clean and tidy and where applicable follow any cleaning rotas set by the landlord of the property.
- Keep each property locked and secure at all times and ensure keys for the property are also kept secure.
- If you break any items within the property that were there when you arrive then you will be required to replace them. You may be charged for any damages beyond what we would expect from general wear and tear, this will be in line with the agreement you will be asked to sign when you arrive at the property.
- Do not take anything from the property when you leave unless instructed you can by ELHT staff. You may be charged for any items that are missing from the property when you leave.
- Ensure all keys are returned or left in the property as per the instructions given when leaving the property after your 2 months stay there ends.
- As you are representing ELHT whilst residing in these properties it is expected that your behaviours to your colleagues, landlords and members of the public (e.g. neighbours) is in line with trust values and the ELHT behavioural framework.
- All properties are subject to random checks by ELHT staff members and the landlords of the properties to check the condition of the properties. Failure to comply with the required expectations can lead to a financial penalty being issued you.
You will need to source your own accommodation to move out into once your two months free accommodation period has come to an end.
The trust cannot extend your stay in any of the properties beyond the 2-month period you are allocated as we will have another group of international staff moving in straight after you leave the properties.
As the UK property market is fast moving, we would recommend starting to look for your own property as soon as you have arrived in the UK. Below are links to two UK websites estate agents use to list properties:
We would advise that you use this site to see current prices of rental properties within East Lancashire so you are aware of the cost of renting a property when you leave the ELHT provided property after 2 months. The prices included will be for the rental for the property per month only and will not include utility bills or council tax unless stated. More information around other charges associated with renting a property, such as utility bills and council tax can be found in the ‘Managing Your Money in the UK’ document/web page.
We would recommend you search properties within a 5 mile radius of either Blackburn or Burnley Hospital using the hospital post/zip codes – BB2 3HH & BB10 2PQ.
We would also advise when looking for a property that you take into account transport routes so you are able to travel to and from work. To view bus routes near to a property you can enter the property address and hospital address into the ‘Plan your journey’ search bar and this will bring up which bus route you will need to take and how much a journey costs - https://www.transdevbus.co.uk/