Adult Nursing

[rabbitrabbit12]

Are you or would you train to be a nurse? I'm 39 and need a change of direction from office jobs, I don't have much prior experience. I know it's very stressed atm.
What would you do?

I did my training in 2005 so glad I’m not a nurse now especially the way the NHS is at the moment. Long hours, staff overworked to the bone and shit pay. Not to meantion no bursary’s available for working full time for nothing plus tuition fees on top. Utilmately you would be leaving university in debt with a low paid job for the work involved and stressed to the max.

DS2 is in his final of months of his nursing degree. I’ve asked him a few times over the past 2.years if he would do it again and he always answers yes. He loves nursing. He’s wanted to do it since he was about 4 or 5.

He’s spent the past few months in A&E so right in the thick of it, so to speak, yet he’s still enthusiastic about it. He desperately wants to work in A&E when he qualifies so maybe that helps, I don’t know.

I did 2yrs of my training in the nineties, but got pregnant which made me disabled, so I had to leave. In your position I’d probably do it because you’ve got quite a lot of working years ahead of you and you’ll always be wondering “what if...?”

Have you worked in care before? I trained in 2009 and worked as a carer for a few years beforehand. It really did give me an idea of the role to some degree. It's not exactly the same, but it gives an idea. Nursing is very stressful, especially for NHS nurses, however I work in the private sector and love my job!

I qualified in 2001 and have worked in acute hospital stuff the whole time, mainly A&E, some teaching and now a senior clinical role. I still love my job. It can be busy and stressful but I feel valued. I do think you need to pick where you work carefully though. There are some very challenging work environments out there at the moment and it's likely to get worse before getting better.

I do think the cost of training is an issue now. I would resent paying to work on the wards as a student nurse. My trust are part of a pilot for a new apprenticeship style training. If you're serious I'd see if your local hospital is taking part in something similar.

@Redinthefacegirl which trust? Do you have any more information at all?

Have you looked at other HCP jobs such as radiographer or OT? There are many different options, I'm not sure I would recommend nursing atm, especially with the funding how it is.

They are starting to do nurse apprentiships, for which you in most places you need to be working as a HCA. It's fully funded, but you won't be a fully qualified nurse, I think you need another year at uni after to have full nursing responsibilities.

www.hee.nhs.uk/our-work/developing-our-workforce/nursing/nursing-associate-new-support-role-nursing

It's pretty new and I'm no expert in how it works. It's a 2 year work based course, so paid. At the end I think they'll it'll be a band 4 role (newly qualified nurses are band 5). It's a bit like going back in time as it looks a lot like The old SEN role to me. The people doing it where i work are hoping they'll be able to do a years conversion course to get their nursing degree after. I don't think anyone really knows how that will work yet though.

I know there's some reservations about diluting workforce and just paying people less for similarly skilled work. But it's worth looking into if nursing might be for you.

Thanks for that link, it's just what I was after.

I've been qualified for 4 years now and have only worked in A&E. Although most shifts are hectic, long, stressful, mentally exhausting and I moan majority of the time about everything I couldn't imagine doing anything else, just wish they would leave our overtime pay alone among other things. Def recommend doing some sort of health care professional job before nursing though as gives you a better idea of the nurses role and what you will expect going into a ward.

rabbit, I don't know where you are but the set up is a bit different in Scotland... If you're in Scotland, your fees are paid.

Redinthefacwgirl that sounds similar to the assistant practitioners who also did a 2 yr course and were also led to believe that they’d be able to do a conversion course to qualify as nurses, but then weren’t allowed to. I used to work with 2. One of them retrained as a social worker, and the other had to train to be a nurse from scratch, starting the 3 yr degree even though she had loads of experience.

Do peadiatrics. Much less stressful!

I've been qualified for almost 5 years and wouldn't train again, I had a bursary but if I had to pay, I wouldn't have been able to do it.
I'm not an academic but great at hands on, physical nursing so I found uni difficult- not majorly but I didn't get high grades, managed to gain a 2.2 Ba Hons.

I worked as a HCA for 7 yrs before deciding to do my training, it gave me a good insight as to what the job entailed.

I got my first job on a medical emergency assessment unit which I absolutely loved but quite often felt like my NMC pin was on the line due to understaffing, and often the unit was overloaded with really sick patients that we didn't have room for - there were a few incidents where people had cardiac arrests and weren't in clinical spaces so the outcomes weren't great.

I left almost 2 years ago and now work in the private sector - the hours, wages and benefits are better. Wages in the NHS weren't the best but could be boosted by working nights and weekends- yuck.

Good luck to you though, follow your heart.