Why nobody wants to be a nurse.

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I just wanted to raise awareness of why we are struggling to train nurses. I'm a third year student and just completed a 8 week placement where I had to drive 1.5 hours each way driving on top of 12.5 hour shifts. I have a disability which long driving has a detrimental impact on my health. I also have caring responsibilities and limited financial support so we effectively pay to train. You also have to do assignments and exams on top.

I got a choice of defer the placement so lose hours (not get my pin on time) or get on with it. I enquired about funding for a hotel which was ignored. Non drivers are regularly being sent 2 hours each way on top of 12.5 hour placements which makes them drop out. When I enquired with this to the university they said nursing requires resilience. Many nursing roles allow you to go part time and I have found a job very close to my house which wouldn't require the insane commuting times. Just after I finished a 8 week placement , I received a snotty email on Sunday night saying an admin mistake made by my assessor could result in me having to redo all the competencies, I have already achieved so years of hard work. At the moment I wanted to scream and say fuck it.

The whole system needs reworking , nurse training is a punitive unrewarding experience and I can understand why so many don't want to go through it. I am already doubting whether I want to do it because I feel beaten down by the training already.

I'm sorry you went through this too. It seems to be an initiation ceremony of torture. Senior colleagues have an attitude it was shit for me it should be shit for you too. There's unreasonable expectations and they expect you to have no life or commitments outside of it. There's many cases of medical students/junior doctors ending their lives because of stress. I hope you are doing well training needs a complete overhaul.

I think the whole system is shit. I have dual registration and went from adult nursing to mental health nursing. While training as an MHN, I had all these competencies which I had to get signed off on, such as catheterization, NG placement, respiratory assessments, ECGs, Blood transfusions etc, etc. Despite the fact I have done all these things multiple times as an adult nurse, they would not give me any credit for prior learning or experience. I was an ICU nurse and far more competent in physical assessment than any mental health nurse I have ever met, as these procedures are rarely done in mental health settings (apart from the ECGs).

Added to this, I had to retake my drug calculation examination. The same one I had to do to qualify as an adult nurse. So even though I could give medications already, as an RGN and had been doing so for years, I still had to prove that I could competently give drugs. It's an absolute farce.

Oh wow, so all nurses need to do is work hard then they too can get paid 52k for 24 hours work? The NHS can sustain that? What a wonderful world 🥰

I'm too gobby, I call it out when management make detrimental decisions for patients and staff. I will probably never get to management because I ask questions . I can't stay quiet and rise to the top. The place I did a placement started putting the staff on 1:1 observations with the same patients for 12.5 hours !! Some of these patients have very severe behavioural challenges it was a recipe for disaster as they had just recruited enough staff now they were going to change it to that. The staff turnover would increase and they would be reliant again on agency increasing the cost of staffing. I voiced my opinions and they brushed it off.

You will be an absolute asset there's so many issues of poor physical health in MH. I'm actually grateful they have changed the training to include all branch skills. All nurses should get placements in all fields. They should use their brains though if you have prior experience , you should be able to use it. I have done palliative care a lot as a HCA , I can't use it as practice experience for signing off.

All for whistle blowing but there's a time and a place for challenging poor care.
If you are undermining senior staff in public, big mistake and a sure fire way to piss possibly more experienced staff off.

Awww lovely , my advice is lean on your cohort for support I wouldn't have got this far without my lovely student friends. I will probably be friends with them for life. I pick up bankshifts at MH hospital I do twilight's 19:15 - 0:00 when it's theory time. I get enhancements on the weekends and I still get time to spend with family. It's really helped lighten some of the load financially when every £1 counts.

Thank you, that is one of my objectives, to rebalance the poor health outcomes among people with SMI.

I think adult and mental health should be amalgamated and not taught as two separate subjects because it's a given fact that physical and mental health are intertwined.

I have narcolepsy, under disability discrimination I should not have unfair treatment putting my placement too far is detrimental to my health. Funny how someone got a placement which was 10 mins from my house. I never received that placement throughout training , I never told the placement it was too slow.

I feel your pain! I’m a second year student midwife and whilst I absolutely love midwifery, I detest the politics and the chronic understaffing that’s leading to amazing, experienced midwives leaving in droves. I will absolutely complete my training but I am already looking to relocate with my family a few years post qualifying. I hope things improve for you! X

This is so true. I am a band 6, ward based, adult nurse, the wards are horrific and the managers do not care at all. I submit datixes as they move staff and leave us so short staffed we cannot take a full break, nothing comes of it.I am having to compromise my professional and personal values, I cannot continue like this, I very nearly had a breakdown and during counselling was told I was suffering from PTSD related to covid. I tried so many times to tell my band 8 that I wasn't coping , I was told it's the same for everyone. The trust did nothing to support me.

So,they are about to lose a highly qualified nurse with 19 years experience.
It's such a shame as I love the patients on the whole, most of my team, I love teaching the students but, I cannot in good conscience continue. I feel completely broken. I am angry as I loved being a nurse but feel I have no choice but to leave. Resilience is thrown around as a 'must have' but, this is simplistic and suggests the nurse is at fault for becoming a victim of a system that treats staff as commodities.

I don't know what to say to you, but you have come so far it would be a shame to stop now. I would never recommend nursing as a career.

@Battlecat98 so sorry to hear that. You sound like exactly the type of nurse the profession needs to keep. Have you thought about moving to a different non ward based area. As much as I moaned about ICU it's the one place you can give your patient the best care without compromising your standards and pass on your knowledge to students. Also loads of opportunity to do courses and usually a decent preceptorship. Appreciate you'll probably have to drop a band but you will quickly progress after a year or so.
Hope you find a solution whatever you decide to do 💐

Yeah l,fair enough reasonable adjustments should be made. Be cautious about what you say about your narcolepsy, we have to be ‘fit to practice’ and yours could be called into question.

There's a misconception that fitness to practice means no health issues it doesn't it means you are aware of your limits and work within them . I'm under active treatment , I take medication and I've never had an issue in the workplace and I've worked for years doing shifts . I'm allowed to drive which means my condition is very well controlled . I keep myself well by following the doctors advice I work within my limits so I don't do transition from nights to days quickly it has to be blocks. I also don't drive for long periods if im exhausted. This is none of my choice uni have allocated me a placement which was far and I wouldn't choose it as a job as it would be dangerous.

It doesn't get any better, unfortunately. Not if you work for the NHS.

If I had my time again, I would train as a podiatrist instead of a nurse. I might have had my own practice by now, and spend my days visiting old people at home and checking on diabetic feet. Instead of being bitter, jaded and broken. With a bad back.

I'm a nurse, and I really do feel for you. I remember it well it was misery. Since then things haven't got much better, truth be told. I wish I had done something else, I love my job but the conditions are intolerable.

@NotAnotherBathBomb I don't care what the nhs can sustain, I'm not a martyr, my health and happiness are all that i consider, perhaps thats why im in the position that I am. My point is not that nurses need to work hard but they need to move away from being a staff nurse in adult general wards if they want any kind of quality of life, unfortunately thats just the way it is as the conditions are just so bad now. I'm qualified in 2 niche areas in post grad studies (currently only work in 1). You need unique skills in unsaturated areas therefore you can command higher salaries. Thats a fact in pretty much every industry, nothing wrong with pointing it out.

Ive applied to join the bank but need to have completed 12 weeks if placement first so not long. Just about to finish 7 weeks, so 4 weeks into my next placement I’ll be able to join!

This!!!!!! I’m so sick of seeing mouthy inexperienced staff getting promoted because they managed to charm and manipulate the right people!

Ok. So I’m qualified as an AHP, but work on managing placements for nurses & AHPs in a university.
I’m really sorry you’re finding it tough, but I can give you some explanation around why some decisions might be made (or how they are at my institution.)

Placement locations might not always feel sensible to students. However, we have a requirement to ensure that all students have a wide range of placements - that’s sites and specialities. So, just because there was a placement 20 mins from your house, it doesn’t mean that it was the right one for you at that point of your course. So, in my experience, we ensure students have community, city,,and small local ‘cottage’ hospital experience. They also need acute, A&E, neuro, MH, paeds, maternity, Rehab, etc. It’s a common complaint from students that they have to travel, but it’s not done to be deliberately difficult. The terms of the bursary/reclaim of expenses are such that you can be funded to travel up to 2 hours per way for placement. We try not to do that, especially if you have adjustments, or caring responsibilities, but if you live rurally, for example, it’s hard not to have some placements like that.

Re: your HCA experience not being counted; this is correct. (At least in Scotland, where I am.) Thats because you’re not operating as a nurse/nursing student, and aren’t being asked to undertake the correct competences for assessment. As HCA work isn’t supervised by qualified practice assessors, we cannot say that there’s a consistent approach taken, sadly. You need 2400 hours of the correct type of assessed placement to be allowed to be placed on the register.

Regarding the cock up with your placement not being assessed correctly - that sounds far from correct. A student shouldn’t be asked to redo a placement for those reasons. I’d suggest you involve your students union, to support you in appealing that decision.

I wish you every luck with your future career. Nursing can be the best job in the world - so I’m told!!

Loving the adverts for spire healthcare.

I’m glad someone has pointed this out.

There are huge shortages of placement offers across the board and increasing numbers of students to try and fill the current shortfall. This means that you’re often trying to fit 100 students into 80 placements.

Students will (quite rightly) not know the circumstances of colleagues so complaining that someone has a placement close to your home when you don’t know their situation can be counterproductive, but equally human beings can make mistakes. The people arranging placements don’t know every student off the top of their head so sometimes might miss things like this when they’re arranging hundreds of placements maybe drop the administrators or other student an email to say you’ve noticed this thing, is a swap realistic from their perspective and if they say no, accept it.

Finally a note about humility. Again, whilst mistakes are made and it’s helpful to highlight these, students are there to learn and sometimes the people with 10, 20, 30 or more years experience of doing the job that you’re training to do will know more than you. Asking why decisions are made from a place of curiosity rather than criticism is a helpful skill.

(I’d also be wary of any job offering £39k to a newly qualified HCP)

Thanks - yes, good point about ALWAYS being short of placement offers. I’ve actually spent the best part of 5 hours today, trying to get an additional 40 offers for our final year Nursing and Paramedic students. There’s a fair amount of calling in favours to do this, for example. It’s then really falling when a student says they don’t want a placement which has been really difficult to get.
Whilst it’s not the student’s responsibility to know how difficult it’s been, when students present entitled behaviour in their approach of saying ‘I don’t want that one’, it does make us roll our eyes, if it’s not for genuine reasons.

I didn’t like to say that about £39k for a newly qualified NMAHP, but as you have, I’d agree. I’d worry that the expectation on a newly qualified professional could be unreasonable for that money. Obviously, you know the details, OP, but I’d be looking for a role with support of experienced colleagues; and somewhere you will be given the space to seek when needed.

The worst manager I had literally used her affair with a senior person to get her promotion. She was quite brazen about stealing other people's work - business cases, research proposals and passing them off as her own.
She moved to another trust and was sacked for incompetence within a few months. It is far too common in the NHS IME.

It’s then really falling when a student says they don’t want a placement which has been really difficult to get. Whilst it’s not the student’s responsibility to know how difficult it’s been, when students present entitled behaviour in their approach of saying ‘I don’t want that one’, it does make us roll our eyes, if it’s not for genuine reasons.

OPs is a genuine reason. Challenging it might be but it's evidently a reason many leave training, I doubt driving 2 hours home after a night shift they think ah its okay the system is fucked I am so grateful.