To feel like waving a white flag and say I’m done

[checkedcloth]

23 years in the NHS, as a nurse. In a senior role for the last 5 years. Seen a compete erosion of services, especially over the last few.

I hate what happens to patients, I hate what happens to staff. And lately I hate what it’s doing to my family. 50 hour weeks, frequent cancelled leave and never switching off.

There’s no big pay packet at the end of it, no sense of real professional satisfaction. Just utter exhaustion and a feeling of holding onto a very thin thread.

Time to call it a day?

It's exactly 5 years ago this week that I was in an orthopaedic ward following surgery. I remember being absolutely staggered at the rate that the nurses worked - it was like watching wind-up toys spinning around the ward, and yet always sweet, kind and professional.

I am SO grateful to you all for all you do, and so sorry that you feel as exhausted and demoralised as you do.

The final straw for me was when I was told off for being irresponsible for only having one pair of glasses. A patient smashed mine beyond repair and I was an inconvenience for needing to make an optician appointment the next day.

I had to pay for a taxi home that night leaving my car as I wasn't safe to drive. I also had to pay for my own glasses. That was pretty much the end of my 15 years service!

Thank you for everything you have done. I'm
A much happier person since I left.

To be fair isadora does have a point. If people are propping up the NHS like this then of course they would take you for granted. If the nurses stopped doing this year's ago maybe something would have changed by now instead of a long, slow burn? And even if that means it all being privatised, at least the nurses would be happy in their jobs and patients receiving the level of care they deserve.

Whisky that's probably true, but it's very difficult to get to the end of your shift and go home knowing full well there's a patient in agony who still needs pain meds that no-one has had time to get yet, or that there's an old lady who has soiled herself and can't be changed until there's a member of staff free, or that there's a relative desperately awaiting someone to sit with them for 10 minutes to tell them how their loved one is doing. Yes we could just walk out and not keep 'propping up the NHS', but it's the individual patients that will suffer.

thankyou to you and all NHS professionals who work so tirelessly to make the rest of our lives better. You are all bloody amazing in my eyes and are the unsung heroes in this country (along with the forces, police and teachers imho). You must do what will makes you happy but before you make your decision, please focus on the positives that you do get from the role of nurse. They might not necessarily outweigh all the bullshit politics of the role you have to face day in day out but if x, y and z really gives you a buzz and you can only get that from working where you are then that needs to be considered. Again, huge Thankyous for everything you have done and you do in the service of others and good luck with whatever you decide to do next 💐

This is the current leading news article on the BBC web page. www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42653542
Clearly not just you and me OP.

My God, my OH has only been an NHS nurse for two years and he already wants out. They treat him like rubbish, his ward is understaffed and they're not recruiting more and the other day he didn't get his lunch break until 4pm!

All of you NHS nurses are indeed 'angels'. As a country we are in a sad state when someone as professional, experienced, and dedicated as yourself decides to call it a day. Wishing you the best of luck (and more time with your family).

So @Whisky2014 would you volunteer yourself or a family member to be desperately ill when we do the 'pull back' required? To leave at the end of shifts, paperwork not done, sickies not handed over adequately, patients in pain, hungry, thirsty.

That's the trouble, Trusts, indeed public perception relies on nurses being caring, selfless, giving. It was, until recently a true vocation.

There is no way that most nurses leave their colleagues in the shit wherever possible. It's like the whole 'leave no man behind' you see in the military.
You will NOT go on a break if a patient is about to arrest and there's only 1 other nurse, you just won't.
When it's time to leave and the next shift hasn't turned up, the nurse bank day they're 'trying, but not hopeful' about getting cover, if you can stay - you do. Because you care.

OP - leg it! There's a whole new world out here

Nurse of 30 years here. I've just had to take 12 weeks sick leave as I was completely burnt out. I'm now looking at the private sector as I still.have 17 years to work😣and there is no way I will survive it in the NHS

34 years as a nurse, the last 17 as a nurse in primary care, just about had enough now. So sad at the erosion of the NHS, now taking a 6 month sabbatical

Hoping never to go back!

It would not take much to be complete carnage. I would take the hit of 1 month or even 1 year of hell if it means everyone forever more gets good care.

Whisky, isadora, if nurses worked to rule would you be as sympathetic if it was your mum/dad/child who deteriorated/died/ ended up with life-changing conditions? I left NHS to work in a nursing home because it was more flexible and I actually got to have a break. I spent 2 hours after the end of one of my shifts (as a student, ergo supernumerary status) dealing with patients in the aftermath of a cardiac arrest because we couldn't leave the floor without patient safety being compromised as the qualified nurses stablised the patient.

They couldn't have left in the middle of CPR, shift changeover had to be delayed until they could safely handover the patient, and those nurses were back on the floor the following morning without any time for a debrief after a very traumatic event.

This post seems to describe how myself and most of my colleagues feel right now. I'm a band 5 and only worked for the NHS roughly 4.5 years but have been qualified slightly longer.
The way my department is going right now I just want to walk away, I feel like I'm drowning, I'm losing sleep, I'm stressed to the max and as an already anxious person I'm really struggling. I want to walk away but I can't, I worked so hard to be a nurse and get my degree and to get to the role I'm in just now, it's what I wanted to do and when my husband suggests I look for another job because he doesn't know how else to help me it breaks my heart because this is the area I wanted to work in and can't imagine nursing I'm any other area and don't know what else I would so if I wasn't a nurse.
I feel completely stuck. Reading your post has made me feel even more sad though because it just drives home that it's not just the department I work for (it sometimes feels like we have our own little bubble) or even the trust i work for but it's every service and every department and theres no getting away from it.

I'll make it clear...if I was in hospital about to die...let me die. If it means short term pain for long term gain I generally go along with that.

I have absolutely nothing but the highest respect for all of you NHS staff.
Everyone leaving the NHS is EXACTLY what the bastard Tories want to happen.
I’m so so sorry that it’s come to this, and to it to have exacted such a toll on you all.