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

Grunt I am also a psychiatric nurse on a high grade, similar to yourself i would imagine. I don't think it is fair to lead people to think that is a normal income for a psychiatric nurse, very few are in our lucky position.

I used to be a nurse and quit.

It’s awful, well at least ward nursing was for me. Always understaffed, some patients and relatives are abusive, back injuries, treated like a child by management, no time for a lunch break or to go to the loo. Nurses are treated with no respect. Unsocial hours.

Some nurses do become managers/specialists but most nurses spend their entire career as a band 5. Many specialist nurse posts have either been cut or downgraded.

if everyone thought like you where would we be? Nurses - to me, are the heart and soul of a hospital. A nurse helped nurse my grandfather until he died, she then comforted me no dr ever could - because they were off trying to save someone else. A nurse helped me though HG for almost 7/8 months, when i was hospitalised, she checked up on me, she held my hair back when i was constantly sick. I will always be grateful for nurse - if you don't think its for you, then by all means, change your course. But to ask if its even worth it - it is to some.

I think the future of nursing is via the modern route. Although I don’t think all trusts yet offer it.

You start work as a Band 2 HCA. You then complete 2 years’ training as a Trainee Nursing Associate (TNA). You spend one day a week at uni, one day on placement & two days on your designated hospital ward. You are paid as Band 2 throughout.

After 2 years you are a qualified Nursing Associate, on a band 4 pay, with the option to do a third conversion year to become a fully qualified band 5 Staff Nurse.

I did nursing at York 2005 when there was no tuition fees and a bursary. I couldn't afford to do it now plus the long hours and pay no matter how rewarding it is mentally draining. I earn 15phr as swimming teacher.

Just done 10 years here as a qualified mental health nurse. The job is varied and interesting, but it's also long hours, high stress, permanently short-staffed and piss poor pay (10 years in and as a band 6 I'm on about £15 an hour).

However trust me you will always have work. Pretty much everywhere is short-staffed, and there's something silly like 1 in 5 nursing vacancies unfilled. In fact the biggest issues most of my colleagues get is not getting pressured into constant extra shifts.

I really wish that people would stop with this "...it's a vocation" spiel. If you can make it through the degree, you have already proved that you have the stamina and strength to stomach some of the worst, if not the worst, requirements in any profession. (Let's just take a second to remember all the blood, vomit, feces, dead bodies, irate patients, and lack of resource that nurses contend with).

Nurses deserve to be paid well! They deserve to look forward to the money. Just because they can stomach washing a dead body or dealing with a ward of contagion, doesn't mean they should be exploited. They are not shit people to be treated like a lower class just because they are strong.

The same goes for teachers.

Stop the vocation preaching and pay these people. Otherwise they will all run off to other places that will pay them (like Australia), and we will end up with a collapsed health service replaced by something far worse (most likely predatory American style and then they really WILL be paid).

@Stompythedinosaur agree!

Okay I've just seen how much nurses get paid in Dubai 😱😱. Shocking how low UK nurses are paid . But regardless I would still pursue a career in nursing because I love the difference I can make in someone's life . And those telling me to choose another career just because I asked a question . Why please ? Huh . I was just curious to here some opinions and educate myself didn't mean I was in nursing for the money solely

I love my job and i hate the money and hours but would not do anything other than Nursing!

They earn more in Dubai because the cost of living is sky high.

YANBU. Any profession where asking for better pay is responded to with “but is a vocation” is not a good career path.

I’d think very carefully before getting into such debt for what is such a low paid job.

Yes, a few nurses can earn pretty good money. The majority will not.
It’s hard work, with long shifts, unsocial hours and wards are understaffed. That’s the reality.

Just because something is a vocation doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be paid well for it, especially when that vocation will impact everyone at some point of their lives. Nurses work long hours in difficult conditions. It’s not a family friendly job and childcare just doesn’t fit around the kind of shifts nurses work. I’m disgusted that nurses training in England have to get loans and pay fees now while also working for nothing and unable to take on second jobs without exhaustion kicking in. It’s not for the faint hearted but the financial rewards are not commensurate to the effort put in

I don't get saying its a vocation thing, most jobs are pretty shit and the moneys not great, are they vocations too?

14 an hour?? My cousinis a nurse and makes 30 an hour but we are in the states.

Student debt for most nurses is irrelevant because they will only pay a small fraction of it back before it is written off.

Eg a nurse on £30k will pay back less than £40 pm so will be hardly noticeable.

The modern route moving up through the AFC bands sounds like a good way to do it and while few nurses will move up to a 'big' salary, in many parts of the country nurses are amongst the highest paid, the salary allows a good standard of living and the ability to always be able to get secure work is like gold dust. Plus there is always the chance to get work abroad.

I'm training to be a children's nurse next month and I absolutely cannot wait.
To be able to help a family through one of the hardest things they will ever go through will be rewarding, (I also want to cuddle babies!!).
The pay isn't the best, but it isn't the worst, and you can move up in your band and apply to become a higher band. When I qualify, I may possibly do my masters after a few years, which could lead to becoming a nurse consultant.
There are so many avenues to go down, but don't give up and good luck!! 😊😊

No point in even trying to be a nurse if you aren't passionate about caring for others. It's one of the toughest careers. Nursing and teaching guarantees you'll be underpaid, overworked and often unappreciated.

You say that you’re not in it for the money. Therefore I think YABU to listen to your dad and crush your dreams. You will only repay your loan if you earn enough and it’s proportionate to income. It’s therefore more of a tax than a loan. If you don’t want to work for what, quite frankly is a pittance in the beginning at least. Then YANBU.

Nurses earn more than average, get a great pension and a great deal of flexibility around part time work. I am 59, a mother, daughter and wife. I have yet to see a nurse rushed off their feet but I have witnessed a lot of people kept waiting while they have time to chatter. Also been on the receiving end of very conflicting advice, especially from midwives and re one of my children's asthma. Don't get me started on the incompetence of CAMHS.

TBH the pay isn't that bad . Also a degree is a degree many companies just recognise education to a degree standard doesn't alway have to be in a relevant subject .
If you stay a the bottom of the ladder job wise it's unlikely you would have to pay any of your student debt.
I don't know why people dismiss £14 as shit pay round here that is WELL above average pay
Many many jobs have shit hours, long shifts and responsibility for life and death
My wife was a staff nurse loved it three 12 hour shifts 4 days a week off and I was a manger for engineering in the biggest communication company and her pay was a lot more than mine

Money side you can work your way up, my partner is a nurse, she is currently a band 6, and finished her first year of her degree, to become a nurse practitioner, she sat her test for first year 4 months early due to being pregnant and having a due date around the same time as her exams, this is also being paid for by her trust, and shes only been a nurse for 5 years

I hate it when people spew out the myth that nursing is a vocation and it's not about pay! Some nursing jobs ( not all) are bloody hard and deserve to be paid appropriately. It's disgraceful when people are shut down when discussing it. Pay is just part of feeling valued which is massively linked to job satisfaction. It's that myth that helps perpetuate poor pay. If nursing had historically been a male profession I'm pretty sure we'd all be paid and treated alot better now.

I've been in nursing for 20 years and honestly if I could go back and chose a different career path I would and I say this now I've progressed and in a great role.

If ward based the job very much depends on the managerial skills of your ward manager. I've met many crap ones that got the job based on who they know and not any managerial skills they possess - this is rife in the NHS.

The main positive career wise is the sheer amount of paths nursing can take you. I've friends that work abroad and also branched out into academia. It can take you as far as you want it to in that respect but just don't get bogged down on a badly run ward!

Your dad has a point, OP.
Lots of PPs are saying you can just work abroad where the money is better. However, your years of experience in other countries may not be recognised in the UK. I've been shocked by the number of nurses I've met working as very low-paid agency carers for this reason. One of them had finally left the Arabian peninsula country where she'd been working because she could no longer put up with the way the male patients treated the Philippines nurses under her supervision. So, there are catches to working abroad.
I also recently met a nurse who'd just left the NHS to work for a care agency because she was so demoralised by the conditions at the NHS hospital where she'd been working.

Don't fall for all this nonsense about doing it out of love either. You should have the right to make a decent living in return for all the physical, intellectual and emotional labour expected of a nurse. The people telling you you shouldn't want to make a living out of it are suffering some severe internalized misogyny. You are not the problem here!