I’m 55 in April. Been really ill (not hospitalised thankfully) with covid and it’s given me the chance to ponder about my working life.
I work in a pretty stressful full on environment (crit care). Honestly can’t say I love the job anymore after 23 years of ICU. Covid has been particularly awful but even before that I often left a shift feeling battered. What for a good few years was an exciting challenge now just feels like battle. I love being able to give consistently high quality nursing care, enjoy close interaction with patients and relatives but I’ve realised that chronic anxiety about the job has started to affect my health, mental and physical. Peri menopause hasn’t helped tbh either.
I was originally going to flexi retire to 1 or 2 long days in my same role (top band 5) but the more I think about it, it’s the responsibility of the job that gets me down. It suddenly occurred to me that I could maybe work as a hca, hopefully on the same unit or even in the community.
Has anyone dropped a grade like this or maybe some hcas could tell me how stressful their job is ? Appreciate that physically it can be hard but I can deal with that. It’s more the constant accountability, making a mistake, trying to get everything done etc.