Sorry this is long! Got a bit carried away ðŸ¤
I qualified in 2017 and went straight into community nursing. Starting out, I was nervous but super keen to finally be out there in the field after 3 long years of study and intensive placements. As students, we were often treated as unpaid ward skivvies and bullied by our mentors. Unable to speak up for fear of not having our placement log books and reflections signed off by the mentor. In our theory lessons we had it drummed in to us to advocate for our patients and challenge bad practice, and not be afraid to whistle-blow. Yet in practice this was actively discouraged by ward staff who, if you spoke up as a student, you were seen as a trouble maker and above your station so to speak. So already before qualifying you are demoralised by the toxic culture that is endemic in the NHS. Not a good start. Then you get your first job as a newly qualified and are thrown in at the deep end with no transition period, little support and older, more experienced nurses bullying you almost in an attempt to make you as bitter and jaded as them and have the enthusiasm and passion for nursing beaten out of you. I took a job in district nursing partly to get away from the toxicity on the wards, but I soon realised that no matter the area of nursing, the culture of nurses 'eating their young' is so deeply entrenched that you almost feel you are going through some sort of warped initiation period as a new nurse who has to prove how tough you are. I had more experienced colleagues loading me up with lists of housebound patients to see that were simply unmanageable ; often I had 20 or more patients on my list to see in an 8 hour day. I started having little bumps in the car because I was rushing like a maniac trying to get to everyone. Factor in documentation between patients and travel time, plus needing to go back to the office for any meetings or supplies, it was completely overwhelming. And in all of this having the pressure of never making a mistake and ensuring patient safety and quality of care.
I used to go home and breakdown in tears with sheer exhaustion. I started to become consumed by work and felt sick to my stomach when having to open my laptop of an evening to check my list for the next day. It started impacting on my home life and my health ; to the point that after 2.5 years of this I had what I can only describe as a complete breakdown. I haven't been able to work as a nurse since. I feel I have changed as a person and I look back on my days before entering nursing and realise how bubbly and alive I used to be. Now I am broken. I'm not saying my health problems are completely attributable to nursing, but let's just say it was the predominant catalyst. They took advantage of me as a new nurse , and other newbies, whilst sitting in the office laughing and joking and drinking tea. They didn't even come to support me when I arrived at a patients house to find his dead body on the floor, 3 weeks into starting the job. One of my lovely colleagues who was only a year qualified was the only one to come and she said the office was full of the experienced ones joking around. No one thought to respond.
Now, I am not saying every single nurse is so horrible. Please don't be mistaken. There are some lovely, caring and supportive individuals in the profession but they are the ones who are taken advantage of and ultimately end up completely burnt out, either leaving or ending up on long term sick leave. Some may think I was just unlucky, and it is not like that everywhere, but all my nursing friends have experienced bullying and toxic working conditions.
You see the problem is not really the pay. Whilst there is no doubt that nurses deserve a higher wage to reflect their level of training, skills, level of responsibility, and the demands of the job, it is still a reasonable salary to start on and this is why many are often conflicted about leaving because the benefits are good in comparison to the private sector. Although I have been out of practice for 2 years, my registration is still live and I will most likely end up returning because there are no jobs out there that don't require further higher education that pay just as well. I can't afford to retrain and go back to uni as I have a son to support as a single parent, otherwise I would. So I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place.
In my opinion the real issue is the working conditions. Not only the culture, but how can a nurse provide safe and effective care when they are working 13 hour shifts with 30 mins mins for lunch and two 15 min breaks? Unpaid breaks bear in mind. Looking after a bay of 8 unwell patients with increasingly complex needs. Or out in the community handling unmanageable caseloads,where the ageing population is increasing and more complex care is being undertaken in patients homes. It is just not sustainable to work at that level for any length of time without burning out.
If the NHS is to survive, staff need to be the number one priority. Without healthy, happy, satisfied staff how can the system function safely and effectively? And just like another poster said, relying on the altruism of health professionals to continue delivering despite all they are up against is no longer an option. Things are out of control in the NHS. Something drastic needs to change. Striking is probably not the answer, and for most nurses it goes completely against their values of prioritising patients, but the government need to realise that the NHS can not be propped up by relying on the goodwill of it's staff.