Nursing? Am I mad

[Bottomplasters]

Mental health nurse qualified 20 years. Feel like I have explored all options, CAHMS, crisis team. Currently sister on acute ward. Feel so demotivated with nowhere to turn.

Earn good enough money but still struggle to get by.

Am I mad to jack job in and apply to be an adult nurse. This will give me a degree and open up more options for working abroad,

I guess students with mortgages manage. It’s just mad thinking about all the debt I will get and how I will afford to live.

Am I mad to consider this?

It’s disgusting that you have to put yourself in horrendous debts now to train as a nurse. Just awful. I trained as an adult nurse and did the degree course when it still paid a small bursary, so I realise I’m very lucky.
I guess it depends if you like nursing in general? Is it just MH nursing you don’t enjoy? Adult nursing is Great for giving you a degree which will allow you to work in pretty much any field, so if you like the job in general and just not the MH side then I would still say go for it. I couldn’t do anything else, despite the shit state that the NHS is in. I truly love my job. Saying that, I left adult nursing a few years ago to move on to neonatal nursing, so that has definitely influenced my view of nursing- I absolutely love neonatal nursing and will never work with adults again.
Good luck with your decision!

Thank you.

I do love nursing and was lucky with my diploma in mental health but really want to feel motivated.

Spoke to student fiancé and it looks like I can get maintenence tuition loans to pay back when I qualify.

27k tuition loan and 8k maintenance loan (how on earth do I live on that?!)

In a word, Yes. Yes you are. Adult nursing is horrific (I’m an RN of 10yrs+). Training is horrible and now that the NHS subsidy has gone, you’ll have to pay for the privilege of travelling to placements, working shifts, juggling your home life and home finances and being knackered & stressed beyond belief. Then you’ll qualify into a shitty band 5 position and be terrified because there are fuck all staff nurses on the ground in most clinical areas, nurses are burning out at a higher rate than ever. There’s no money for professional development. If you do move up you’ll be working at a band 6 rate for band 7 work, or the work of multiple b6’s. It isn’t just my trust. I see it with lots of my nursing friends who are all over the country. It is unsafe, demotivating and the government doesn’t seem to give a fuck.

I’m on leave at the moment. I’m due to revalidate this year, I’m seriously considering not doing so.

If you do go ahead, you’ll have to do bank shifts as an RMN during your training to top up the finances.

I just feel so stick and demotivated

I wouldn't encourage anyone to go into HPC roles these days (unless maybe they were a) more or less guaranteed to not go beyond 9-5 Mo-Fri and b) gave you the ability to work privately.

NHS middle managers are incentived to screw as much work for as little remuneration as they can out of their shop-floor staff.

Many simply Do Not Care as they will have moved on or up by the time the result of their abuse of their staff comes to its inevitable conclusion. They know they will never be held accountable.

When I started, 30 years ago, using current terminology, the manager who 'had my back' was a Band 8C, I was a 5.

Now we cannot trust our own Band 7s to not screw us over.

I'm an adult branch nurse. There are many opportunities in Adult branch nursing. Of those I trained with who I am in touch with, one is a community renal nurse, two are health visitors, two are practice nurses, one is a lecturer in nursing, one is a genetic counsellor, one is named nurse for child protection, one is named nurse for looked after children, one is lead nurse for child deaths and finally one is a Doctor of Nursing and head of Nursing and Midwifery in Research.

There are so many opportunities, I'd give it a go.

Nursing is difficult as you know and so much is espexted of newly qualified staff now. I'd be looking at health jobs in the Guardian, I think it's on Wednesdays.

What about looking into the private sector such as the priory?

I feel where ever I go I’ll be jumping into same pile of shit.

plenty of that about. What about cqc assessor, mental health advocate, some sort of assessing or teaching role.

Have you considered a move into children's residential social care? A friend of mine now works with children with disabilities in a social care home and loves it.

Please don't! Conditions are horrendous, pay is pretty poor for the responsibility and I get no respect from my managers - this seems to be the norm. Patients are sicker and yet we still have to look after the same amount of them regardless of how sick they are. It's grim.

I’d like to look to transition from general over to mental health eventually.

Some neuro units need RMNs as well as RNs. A different environment altogether without the hassle of retraining.

Do universities still offer branch training for qualified nurses??

Why don't you look to do some further training that can open other doors for you in the MH field?
Nurse prescribing?
Degree in substance misuse?
Leadership and management degrees?
What about liaison roles within primary care and combine the two?
Is there a specific condition that you have a special interest in? Eg you could do some diabetes training and be a diabetic specialist within your trust- if you can identify a gap in services and get trained to be able to fill it some trusts will support a new role being created.
Most trusts underspend on their training budgets and appraisals act as a way to identify ways to progress doing something else could be one of your goals.

Think outside the box- it sounds like you're very experienced- are you prepared to start at the bottom again?

What is it you're hoping to achieve? A route to working overseas with better conditions/pay? Or something else?

It's kind of hard to tell from your posts what the specific problem you're trying to solve is / what your goal is.

My goal is to feel motivated about nursing again. I don’t mind starting at the bottom.

I’m totally burnt out at present but just want to cover bills etc

Adult nursing is not the route for avoiding burnout

(Sorry, I know I sound like the voice of doom).

Yes sounds totally mad plan!

What the hell cant I do.

Got knocked back for CQC. A lot of people have gone down DWP route.

I work for a CCG in the Continuing Healthcare team , RMN's are always needed. The job is great ,look into your local CCG jobs.
Doesn't solve your problem of wanting to work abroad but worth thinking about as a job change .

G girl that sounds good could you inbox me the reality of what it’s like!

have dm you