Nursing degree disaster

[Rye0179]

AIBU to feel really fed up and disheartened?

I’m about to qualify as a registered mental health nurse. One of the main reasons I chose this degree was because I was told it offered strong job prospects. Even during my initial nursing interview, I asked about employability and was reassured I’d have plenty of options to choose from.

But now that I’ve started looking for jobs, there’s absolutely nothing out there. Not a single position I can apply for. All the Band 5 RMN jobs require someone with experience and post-preceptorship, someone who’s already worked in the role.

I’m feeling really disheartened. After completing 2,300 unpaid clinical hours and working hard to maintain good grades (around 75% overall), it looks like I might finish qualified but unemployed. Even more frustrating is that areas are not staffed well, but trusts have hiring freezes due to budgets and have apparently over recruited international nurses, leaving those who have trained here struggling for jobs.

Does anyone have any advice or suggestions for alternative career paths where nursing skills might transfer well?

It’s quite reassuring to hear you graduated at a difficult time and still managed to find a role in the end!

I’m not surprised people are pulling out of courses - the course is so demanding. I saw an article recently reporting about student nurses using food banks to get by. It’s so hard to juggle financially with doing full time placements. It just isn’t worth the stress without a job pretty much guaranteed at the end.

I’ll look into support worker roles - hopefully some trusts will allow me to after qualifying. I feel a bit like a failure not being able to get the role I’ve spent years training for, but feels unavoidable

Apply for private sector jobs. Cygnet, Priory etc. They're usually in secure settings but you'll get your experience on wards, being nurse in charge, working as MDT, understanding mental illness more and implications of various legislation. They usually offer preceptorship. You'll get your experience and then can start to look at NHS. I spent a few years in private, including nursing homes as well and eventually got a job as a community nurse. (I'm RNLD, so as an RMN you should have even more choice of job)

Is there any posts in CAMHS or LD? In hospitals or community. My friend qualified and got a post in LD and now works in CAMHS.

And that’s why I gave up nursing back in 1988 20 months in - liked the job but there were literally no jobs on our area for those just qualifying - went back to being an office manager. I couldn’t move areas , as married with 2 kids and ex H was a miner, so not exactly a work from anywhere career

It's devastating, OP. It's a problem affecting all newly qualified registered HCP, from doctors to radiographers. The posts just aren't there. NHS Trusts have frozen band 5 (or equivalent) recruitment due to budget constraints. It was hoped that things would improve with the change in govt and the new tax year bringing refreshed funds but it hasn't happened and still we face enormous challenges. Skill-mix issues, vast swathes of older registered staff leaving the profession and no one coming in to fill the gaps because their posts are frozen or amalgamated. Leaving huge shortages of registered staff and meaning that those employed are enormously overworked. It is dreadful.

I don't have the answer, but I do sympathise. It is shit.

Apply for the roles anyway, we will often not have any applicants.
Wales seems to have more roles available.

No advice but watched an ambulance documentary and they said they get mostly mental health calls and it's a struggle. Makes you just dispair that we have specialist nurses waiting to get started.

Care homes, for drugs rounds and treatment plans, all nurses in demand.

I’m in the south east and it has really surprised me how quickly things have shifted. 3 years ago when I took over as a ward manager, we had a rolling advert out and no applicants! Now the ward I have since left is fully staffed and we have student nurses unable to find jobs!

The trust I work for has RNDA students coming through as well and as they are essentially paying to train them, they are giving them priority in offering them interviews and if they are successful they will be offered jobs but may not have much choice of where they go.

I really do feel for you, it must be awful. I’ve seen it once before and it didn’t last long but it wasn’t this bad!

Like others have said, be that squeaky wheel and apply for anything that comes up. People do move up to band 6 and from place to place so vacancies will come up.

private, bank, nhs professionals - apply anyhow to these band 5 posts!!

Go private. Some amazing nursing care being delivered in the private sector. NQ are often scared to consider outside the NHS plus it's not the safest environment to start out in.

A private dementia unit will offer preceptorship. Ring around your area. You will gain many qualities and insight and honestly have less stress and better work life balance than the NHS will offer. The pay is often better too. Good luck, it’s terrible that the trusts that have trained you are not offering employment. Congratulations on your degree.

As @JDM625 said try the civil service website or local authority jobs site. They often employ for these roles I think I’ve seen something similar with like a training program if I’m not mistaken.

Something like this:

https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SID=cGFnZWNsYXNzPUpvYnMmc2VhcmNoc29ydD1zY29yZSZvd25lcnR5cGU9ZmFpciZ1c2Vyc2VhcmNoY29udGV4dD0xMzY5ODU2OTkmcGFnZWFjdGlvbj12aWV3dmFjYnlqb2JsaXN0Jm93bmVyPTUwNzAwMDAmam9ibGlzdF92aWV3X3ZhYz0xOTU0ODU4JnNlYXJjaHBhZ2U9MSZyZXFzaWc9MTc0OTg0MDc5OS1iMWY5YWFiMjAwYTY4OTMzMzIzYTFkMDAzOWQ2M2QzNjhhYzhhMmZh

I am not in this field so apologies for not understanding the bands etc but just to give an example of things that often come up in the civil service. This one does say 5 years experience but if you can demonstrate the rest of the skills etc could be worth applying?

Hope you find something soon..

How about this @Rye0179

It’s a B5 development role specifically for newly qualified MH nurses.

A full-time vacancy has arisen at North East Hampshire Community Mental Health Recovery Service for a Development post for a newly qualified CPN (NMC). The post can lead to a band 6 post within the formal development structure.

https://www.mentalhealthcareers.co.uk/vacancies#!/job/UK/Surrey/Aldershot/Surrey_Borders_Partnership_NHS_Foundation_Trust/Adult_Mental_Health/Adult_Mental_Health-v7252200?_ts=334

Because to employ someone they have to have the money available to pay them. If they have been using agency to back fill vacancies it means there is no money to recruit. It's bonkers. It's becomes a cycle that is really difficult to get out of.

Just by your posting style I can tell that you’re likely far better than lots of the current MH nursing students or newly qualified nurses I see. Apply for those band 5 jobs and if you make a good application you could easily get shortlisted. If you get you foot it the door, you can make pretty quick progress, so try not to lose heart. I’ve also heard there are not many jobs around but these things do always go in phases. Hang in there. Have a look at private sector, as others have suggested.

Not read all answers but via relative there are I am told a lot of mental health positions in prisons. Both permanent and bank through agencies. Some MH support in prisons are linked to NHS but others are private firms. Practice Plus Group. Not the same pension or leave as NHS but similar banding and you would gain experience. The facilities are not in the main part of the prison, they are separate so only see ppl with MH problems.
Good luck with your job search you have done amazing with your grades.

I have a relative in a specialist dementia home, and there are mental health nurses there. This is advanced dementia, with many of the patients sadly needed 1:1 care and some psychoses as well. Is something like that an option? Also are there any hospital bank staff you can sign up as/NHS professionals/Agency?

There are jobs listed for RMN's on carehome.co.uk

Still apply for roles even if you don't meet the minimum requirements.

Look for nearby trusts that may not have the same freezes in place - for instance, my local general trust employs some mh nurses in certain roles.

Apply for a nurse bank.

Look for jobs outside the NHS, such as private hospitals.

Apply to an agency.

It must be stressful, but hang on. There's a shortage of nurses. Keep trying.

Have you tried any of the Mental Health charities? They sometimes have vacancies for RMN's. Mind, Rethink and Beat (the Eating Disorder charity) might be good places to start.

If you'd be interested in prison healthcare, apply even without prison experience. There is a need for RMNs in prisons and their healthcare providers often struggle to recuit nurses generally.

I’m an AHP. When I qualified 20 years ago there was an NHS wide recruitment freeze. The situation goes in circles but it been a steady decline in overall numbers since back then. There’s such a massive misunderstanding of the NHS and the problems with lack of clinical staff. The number of middle management that now exist “in order to sort out these problems” is obscene….
Understaffed yet we reduce the number of training places/close courses completely. Charge huge fees and get new graduates with huge debts and no jobs due to budget cuts. Pay recruitment fees to get people from abroad. Burnout existing staff by cutting admin support and adding it on top of the clinical workload. Charge the patient record software to that of a Tory MP’s business. This useless software alone has tripled the time our admin takes and is not user friendly. Resolve the lack of senior staff problem by creating apprenticeship positions which require senior staff to oversee and be held clinically responsible for their work, so we have to teach, oversee and sign off their work in addition to our own ever expanding roles. Sell off community buildings for income generation. Then have no space for fully qualified staff on the rare occasion we are allowed to recruit. Once qualified the apprentices think fuck this, I swan off after my free training and set up my own private business and/or move to another country to work for way better pay and conditions.
I could go on for a very long time as that just a snippet of what goes on!
One of the reasons it’s so disheartening is that we know what we could achieve if we just had enough clinicians and clinics.
Drop all fees for all medical courses, create a golden handcuff to work within the NHS for 10 years…. It wouldn’t fix everything but it’d be a bloody good place to start!
Aaand rant over (for now).
Gold medal to anyone who bothers to read all that 😂

It'll be a pay drop compared to what you would get for an NHS band 5 role, but you will be able to walk into a job as a support worker, especially in the private sector.

It’s no comfort but we had some excellent student radiographers qualify this summer who are unemployed.

The radiology department is full of middle eastern and Nigerian staff, many as agency; the CT/MRI is entirely Nigerian, Indian and Filipino. All 20 of them. This does not reflect any diversity in the city which couldn’t be more white if it tried. We are also talking one if the most desirable places to live outside London, so it’s not like they were struggling to find people willing to work here.

It is ridiculous and untenable. But, the tide will turn again. Please don’t be too disheartened, but I utterly understand your frustration.