To think it's not worth it to become a nurse

[Emily786]

3 years of graft in university to only get paid £14 an hour m I had my heart sat on it till my father was like the NHS is going downhill and there will be no jobs by the time you go out into the world 😭 . So I don't know whether I should re-evaluate my choices

Isn't there a shortage of nurses? (Therefore there are jobs?)

Even if the NHS has gone (unlikely in 3 years!) there will still be a demand for nurses.

No one nurses for the money. It's a vocation, at the start of your career the hours are long, the pay is shit, but it can get much better as you progress.
If you're heart isn't in it then don't do it.

If Nursing isn't for ypu, in terms of the Human side, then don't do it. It needs to be partly a vocation.

It doesn't matter if the NHS ceases to exist, we'll still need Nurses.

In that sense, you'll always get work and work visas for other Countries.

What are your other choices?

@Emily786

Surely if it's what you want to do in life, and what you trained for, you should want to do it for the love of the job, even if it IS only £14 an hour!

That's the starting salary at band 5. If you're good at your job and can progress quickly that will go up. My nurse colleagues are on between £20 and £30 an hour (NHS) in band 6 to band 8a posts.

Not even a little bit.

I’d always kept it in the back of my mind should
I ever decide to retrain (along with midwifery) but now... 3 years of full time university study, expected to work for free at the same time, c.£30k of debt with no bursary, into a low paid, high stress job with shitty hours, below-inflation pay rises and a metric fuck tonne of bureaucracy and box-ticking taking precedence over delivering actual quality care to patients.

Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope.

You heart clearly is not in it. If you are only doing a job for the money you can get, why on earth did you train as a nurse?

Plus you are guaranteed a job, always and anywhere. That's a pretty special thing in this day and age. And you'll be helpingota and lots of people have a better life. Which is also quite special.

If your looking at the pay before the job then nursing isn’t for you. You’ll move up the pay scale quicker than ever now the AFC points have been decreased. But honestly if your not passionate about delivering excellent care and making a difference, the hours, slog, smells, gore and being emotionally drained will tip you over the edge

Getting a place to study nursing at University is hard- very competitive , most courses are over subscribed, intensive often day long interviews and evaluations to get through.
No one is in it for the money, and if you are not very motivated you are unlikely to be accepted for study.

My DD is studying nursing- ( child nursing) 850 students who had the required grades competed for 53 places.

Yes the NHS may be scrapped, but that won't stop people from getting ill.
So whatever system we have in place there will always be jobs for nurses.

I don’t get this, there will always be a need for nurses.

£14 per hour isn’t bad either and there will a chance to progress further.

I think your dad is being unreasonable. The world wil always need nurses. You would always have work. More than likely get promoted. Go part time if you wish as you progress. Work in many different fields. Do something that is undoubtedly extremely worthwhile too. A few nurses go onto retrain a midwifes, doctors, health visitors so it can’t be that bad.

Don’t let your dad crush your dreams

YANBU. Even the few replies on this thread that seem to imply you want to do it for a vocation and it’s wrong to be concerned if there are jobs and want to be paid adequately for doing it.

Most nurses I know (I know a lot) are trying to get out. It is a hugely difficult job with a massive lack of recognition for it. In many areas you get punched, kicked and spat on regularly.

Plus it is not certain that there will always be jobs, even in nursing. Absolutely it has better job security than many careers but it’s not guaranteed.

If you want to do it speak to some actual health care professionals rather than people who think it should be a vocation. Or just save yourself the trouble and don’t do it.

We are lucky in Scotland- no University fees, and a large ( and increasing) non means tested bursary which does not need to be paid back.

My DD works part time too- by the time she finishes her degree she will have savings and no debt.

In most areas now midwifery training is direct entry. Plus if you want to be a doctor then being a nurse first is an incredibly long route to take (although possible). Medicine is probably a worse career to go into at the moment anyway.

Your dad’s opinion is odd because regardless of who the employer is, there will always be a need for nurses. And with EU nurses possibly less able to work in the UK, home grown nurses should be in demand.
Plus nursing is a vocation, you probably won’t get rich but you’ll be helping people.
And some do get well paid. My middle sister was senior nursing officer for big LONDON NHS trust and had a very good salary.

There will always be a need for good nurses. If you don't want to work in the NHS, you can work in private, or abroad. I can't imagine a nursing degree could ever be wasted.

I think the expense of 3 years at university to end up on relatively low pay (initially) does put a lot of prospective nurses off.
Nursing like teaching is one of those jobs where you have to be really passionate about it because the job is hard, low paid and undervalued.
There is the potential to have a successful rewarding career but you can't do it just for the money.
If you're worried about the initial outlay maybe a nursing apprenticeship would be a better route into nursing.

To an extent I think it depends where you live. A nurse's salary will go much further in Nottingham than in Oxford.

But there are other jobs that allow you to help people while paying better or fast-tracking progression through the pay bands, or at least will be less punishing in terms of shifts, understaffing, draconian regulatory bodies. Any of the allied health professions will give you a better quality of life, if fewer options for jobs. Suffering is not a prerequisite for helping people.

But there is a critical shortage of nurses in the UK, and it's rapidly getting worse not better, because policy-makers have gambled that nurses will continue to tolerate a weakening salary and worsening working conditions (spoiler: they will not, and we're haemorrhaging nurses faster than we can replace them). There will definitely be jobs.

So if you worked 37.5 hours a week, that would be £27,300 pa. if your hourly rate was £14, v simplistic calculation, but that is not a poor wage. What are you expecting?

I think it's fucking ridiculous to expect someone to take on a huge amount of debt to study for a skilled profession, expected to work until they're in their late 60s at the least, a job requiring physical stamina, and then tell them to suck up shitty pay or their 'heart's not in it' or 'it's for the vocation, not the money.' This is why jobs done mostly by women are still paid like crap and treated like crap. Then you get it in the neck from sneery twats in their race to the bottom with 'Well, you should have chosen a different profession if you wanted to own a home/live in London/have kids, etc.'

YANBU.

This is a bit sad, it shouldn't be about the money - although obviously the money does help.

There are plenty of nursing jobs, you are pretty much guaranteed a job when you qualify - there are so many vacancies. I've started offering jobs to band 5s on the spot if they seem any good - I want them to stop them being poached by other departments.

I'm a band 8a matron and I get paid around 50k a year. I have a lot of responsibility, but I also have a lot of fun, enjoy looking after the patients still and love my job.

I think the expense of 3 years at university to end up on relatively low pay (initially) does put a lot of prospective nurses off.

Of course it does!

I think it's fucking ridiculous to expect someone to take on a huge amount of debt to study for a skilled profession, expected to work until they're in their late 60s at the least, a job requiring physical stamina, and then tell them to suck up shitty pay or their 'heart's not in it' or 'it's for the vocation, not the money.'

Yes but the OP has to work with what we have now not how things should be.
No-one is saying that nurses do not deserve to be paid well but the fact remains that if all you are interested in is the money there are easier ways to earn it.