To leave nursing and go into hotel management

[Givenupgivingashit]

I'm absolutely fucked. Just finished a 14hr shift on a busy acute ward, literally 20mins break for a wee and a cup of tea and that's it. And it's the same all the time now. I'm sitting here with a whisky, my head is pounding and my feet are killing me, I can feel them burning through my tights. And it's like this every shift and I can't do any more. But I don't know what else I could do. I've got management experience in the NHS, and the only other job I've ever really done is in hospitality as a hotel employee before I came into nursing. I did the usual round of housekeeping/reception/waitressing/kitchen runner so I've got a reasonable idea of how it all works. But I'd need to go into it at a higher level to maintain a similar income.
Does anyone have any experience of working in a hotel as a manager? What's it like?

Custody Nurse at a Police Station? I was speaking to one today, once you've done two shifts a month it's £25 an hour although she was on a zero hour contract,however could work whenever she wanted really. You'll still get to use your clinical skills but without the pressure of a ward. Can be very busy though.

I've always thought nurses have lots of options of different areas to work within nursing. I'm just amazed that most of your colleagues have moved into rehab. I hadnt realised there were so many private centres around.

Fellow nurse here. I was in your boat, currently working in an office based role related to healthcare. I am doing a CIPD HR qualification in my spare time, currently far less stressed, work monday-friday and I'm on roughly the same money as I was working on a ward in London. It annoys me no end when you tell people you no longer want to be a nurse and all they do is suggest other roles in nursing ie outpatients, research, this is not always helpful. I completely understand the feeling of being trapped in nursing, it is incredibly difficult to even get an entry level interview in another field with exclusively nursing experience on your CV. I don't think you should try hotel management though.

Before changing jobs, consider also your works pension (might seem a long way off now). But you are unlikely to get a great pension package working in hospitality as you do with the NHS.

I agree with the previous poster about community. I have 2 family members who have moved into community roles recently and are much happier.

Hi, I'm in hospitality, don't forget job security is fragile at best. Covid changed things hugely, just got through that now this cost of living situation people aren't spending. We do Weddings and loads of Wedding Car Companies, Venues etc are closing down due to sales drying up. I've no nursing skills but I'm trying to get into the public sector if I can ! Good Luck anyway to you.

Have you considered the armed forces? Not joining up, but working as a civilian practice nurse directly for the Defence Medical Services in one of their medical centres? It’s a lot nicer environment, the patients are generally a lot more polite and well behaved, and you can get a much better work/life balance than at the moment. You often treat families and dependents too, so it’s not just people in the forces you’ll encounter day to day.

Just another avenue of nursing for you to consider that you mightn’t have done already?

What about an assessment post? You could still use your nursing skills but in a slightly different way.

And whatever you do, do not become a disability assessor, do not be fooled by the money.

Have you considered being a research nurse? Mostly office hours in our trust with a bit of evening/weekends for more intensive trials. You often get a chance to build relationships over time with patients.

this type of question will give you a great list of things that ‘nurses’ can do, and whilst that’s useful, it’s also important to think about what matters to you - what will make you happy and avoid future burn out?

I’m a Career Coach - if you were my client I would suggest starting with you - perhaps you could think back to the last time you had a really good day at work - it might be a long time ago so it could be tough! - what was it about this day that made it good? What was happening on this day that made it great? What did you do? What did other people do or say? What was the pace like? If you take away the nursing elements what are you left with? (Some ideas: feeling like an expert, solving problems, getting the details right, advocating for others, recognition from others, making people happy / comfortable, fast paced/ manageable pace / time for lunch / working with friends/ supportive colleagues- anything that seems significant-) write it down - then focus on this list, which jobs do you know about which have some or all of this list in common? Do some research into areas you don’t know about, And then ask which of the jobs on your list would value a background in nursing.

I was a ward nurse for over 10 years, and for the last 4 or so of those I'd be in tears at the thought of going into work each day.

I finally left to go into a nurse specialist role, primarily in the community. Much less pressure, I'm much happier and I've moved 2 bands in the 2 years since I've left. I would 100% leave nursing before I moved back to the wards.

Thank you to everyone who's replied and given advice. Just had a long conversation with eldest DD on the journey to dropping her back at school and she thinks that I'd be mad to go into hotel work too; she has a friend who does hotel work during the holidays and even though she's only a general dogsbody it sounds like it's all changed since I last did it 20+ years ago, in terms of guest attitudes and pay/conditions.
I'm working tonight so I'll see whether this shift is any better than yesterday, not that it's going to be the dealbreaker but at least I can go into it with a more balanced frame of mind and start thinking about routes out if needs be. It's just that I'm not sure whether I want to stay in nursing or do something totally different.

Have you considered community nursing? Our practice has three nurse practitioners with set hours, an appointment system and the gratitude and respect of their patients, most of whom are regulars who they really get the chance to know.

hospitality? No. Out of the frying pan into the fire.

Hi, just to say I'm in the same boat. Done with nursing but no idea where or how to go next (to match wages) good luck.

I never understand the line “go into injectables/cosmetic nursing”. Those of us who work in acute setting wards/ED/critical care etc and busy acute wards do it because we love the environment injecting botox is just not going to cut it. Secondly it’s about making a difference to peoples lives often at their worse moments being able to reach out a physical and emotional hand to someone who is complete stranger and offer support and appropriate medical intervention. Again injecting Botox is just not what we have trained to do or what for many of us the job is about.
Rather than driving away many dedicated HCPs from areas where we are desperately needed to boring uninspiring roles we need to look at how we improve working conditions so that we want to stay and do the job we believe in.

You could look into pharmaceutical companies as they often have roles for nurse advisors / clinical trial and other things that require your experience and qualifications but pay well and nothing like the hours you'll be doing

Someone I know became a nurse for HIV+ people. She now works fixed days and hours and has her own patients that she sees and educates. It sounded less stressful to me.

Or a diabetes nurse? Mine seems pretty relaxed. Again a lot of educating people but fixed days and hours and the same patients for years. You do still make a real difference jn peoples lives.