Any other NHSers planning to leave?

[treesliding]

I've been in the NHS for nearly 20 years and this year has broken me. I've never seen so much sickness, complications, poor management, fear, panic, stress and sadness. The thing I'm currently seeing the most of is hatred by the public because a. we can't offer normal services and b. Our 'inability to cope' appears to have caused the current lockdown.

Anyway.....I've decided to start planning my exit. I've got another 20 years working and I don't want to spend them in the NHS. Everyone I know is leaving or planning to. Not in the next 5 minutes but in the next 3-6 months. It's sad but expected.

But I don't really know what to do. Lots of skills, but all quite specific to healthcare! (I'm in therapies, not nursing or medicine). I want to do something for myself...I don't want a boss....I don't want to work with the public unless it's for a nice reason....I have no idea. But I need to start eating some ideas together.

Or rather 'getting' some ideas together!

Watching with interest OP.

I have seriously considered getting out of the NHS - after 23 years of service, but I would’nt want to move into private practice (not sure why, it’s just not attractive to me).

DH has been made redundant so I need something that pays about the same and has reasonable security (2 dc at home so not very easy to just downsize, cut costs etc).

It’s a sad situation but this year has ground me down more than I knew was possible and there’s absolutely no end in sight

This might suit mad. I also work for NHS and am recently divorced. My skills are only recognisable in the UK. I love to travel and kids are older. I M going to drop a band so less stress and do agency contracts for 3 months in all the cities in the UK. Starting with Brighton. I was even thinking of getting a campervan.

I'm renting out my house and will rent a room in the city's I go too.

I am so excited and can't wait to go! I love exploring new city's.

I worked as a bank nurse in the same hospital for nearly ten years, suited me perfect with the hours and avoiding childcare costs. Was looking after the first covid patients in February, come march when Boris lockdown the country within a week they emptied the hospital awaiting this peak that never arrived at our hospital but in the meantime I was told there would be no bank shifts for the foreseeable future, im a single mum, I had to sign on universal credits, couldn't get a job as a nurse anywhere due to the floods of retired, private, community nurses that filled the hospitals and care homes. I'm now working as a cleaner in a hotel and I'm sad to say this but I actually go to work happy now after 20 years as a nurse. I loved being a nurse but you really are just a number now, you go on a ward now, there's very rarely any team spirit and morale is very low. I'm just talking from my experience.

My wife is thinking of leaving, all of last week she was on a covid ward with 25 patients, they was told there is nothing they can do for them, they either survive or die, missus found it awful, literally just there to hold hands and keep them comfortable, has affected her mentally

If you don’t mind a pay cut then how about vet nursing

I left the NHS a long time ago but I went back to university to get a degree to move into a completely different field.

This meant living off savings and doing part time work in the evenings for three years. Not something I would want to try and do now given the state of the economy which I am expecting to get worse for many more years.

Sorry to hear people are taking their frustrations out on you. I can understand your sentiment but the UK is about to enter into a period of high-unemployment. It may not be a super time to look to diversify without a clear direction and established opportunity.

What @Marchitectmummy said. I really feel for NHS workers right now but I work in the private sector and every day I'm worrying about whether my job will still be here next week. I wouldn't leave a relatively safe job at the moment.

Nurses if you’re thinking of leaving the NHS please consider social care, we really need nurses! It is different but in the right care home can be really rewarding.

Where I work, they’re down 60 critical care staff after the first wave. Not sickness, but people leaving.

@Dumpypumpy

If you don’t mind a pay cut then how about vet nursing

I'm not a nurse, I'm in therapies so I don't think they'd want me!

@Marchitectmummy

Sorry to hear people are taking their frustrations out on you. I can understand your sentiment but the UK is about to enter into a period of high-unemployment. It may not be a super time to look to diversify without a clear direction and established opportunity.

I'm certainly not going to jack it in right now but in order to maintain my sanity, I need to start planning my exit strategy so I have something to aim for.

@Bubblemonkey

Where I work, they’re down 60 critical care staff after the first wave. Not sickness, but people leaving.

That's hideous, but not surprising. There will be a long period of very low staffing throughout the NHS for a long time until they pump a load of money in, get more people trained up and they become experienced to fill the gaps....10-15yrs?!!

@treesliding I'm a police officer and after 20 years I'm planning to leave too. Here's what I've done:
Decided what I want to do - totally different field.
Started a course in said field
Reduced my hours and only work 3 days a week
Started volunteering to gain practical experience
I want to work for myself and after so long in the public sector felt very scared of making the jump. My local chamber of commerce offer help so I have a business advisor and coach who I talk to every week.

I will fully leave next year but feel like the weight of the world is off my shoulders knowing that I'm working towards it. It's not a great time to be leaving a secure job and people think I'm mad for giving up the pension but they don't have to do the job day in day out. Good luck and enjoy making the decision and taking the leap x

I feel for you. Nurses and Midwives have also received no extra financial reward for all their hard work during Covid ( after being told by the Government that they wouldn't be forgotten). It would seem their reward, was the weekly clapping and pan bashing. Pitiful.

This is interesting as I started a similar post a couple of days ago. Ill have a look tonight. Im doing my third shift in a row today. The youngsters arent sticking around it ps us old timers that keep on going.

Which therapy are you involved in OP? That might help us to give some suggestions.

@Stinkyjellycat

Which therapy are you involved in OP? That might help us to give some suggestions.

Speech and language therapy - but I work full time in a big acute hospital. It's very medical what I do (before people suggest doing private work with children or working for the council/schools!!)

The NHS is desperate for therapists and the therapy teams I've worked with have had much higher morale and more rewarding jobs than I did as a nurse within those areas... Are you sure it's not just that you need a change from your current workplace?

If I could afford to quit nursing and retrain I'd be a physio! One of my close friends works in neuro rehab and the other on icu, both NHS physios and they both love their roles. The icu friend is putting together a business case for a covid recovery service and is likely to get funding and project lead it.

If you really do think it's the job not the workplace and you need a complete change of career then I think jobs that are enjoyable, with no boss, that are secure and pay well are the holy grail and if you find one come back and tell me because I will quit the NHS too

I started working for the NHS (non clinical) in February after being in a completely different field for thirty years. Silly me fancied a change 🙄. I have during the last few months thought on more than one occasion "what the hell have I done" and have considered going back to where I was previously but I'm still here plodding on doing the best I can to support my frontline colleagues. It's not been an easy ride and I'll be honest I'm not in it for the long haul, that I do know,

I’m a nurse and I think AHPs seem happier and treated better (and higher paid for most part).

My only hope is that after this there will be an acceptance that we must never run the NHS at such low clinical staffing levels again. If the magic money tree had shaken a little to fill those 40,000 nursing vacancies we might have been able to staff more wards and nightingales and avoid having to completely destroy the economy in order to ‘cope’.

I think the bigger AHP departments like physio / OT / radiology etc probably do have better morale because they are seen as important to the hospital and are in bigger staffing numbers (proportionately to their patients, I'm sure they're still under staffed too!)

My little department is not thought of like that. We have always been dismissed, misunderstood, ridiculed for what the point of us is. Most people have no idea what an SLT does in an acute hospital. We're seen as a expensive but slightly useless department who constantly has to justify what the point of us is. This filters through from high up management through to ward teams.

I've worked elsewhere and it's always been the same. My friends in other trusts are experiencing the same so I don't think changing jobs would help. If I could just do the job I trained for without all the other crap I'd be happy but those days went years ago. Covid was just the straw that broke the camels back!

Yeah op I have handed my notice in and I am taking up a new job soon.
Over 30 years as a nurse I can’t take it any longer in the acute sector.
I’m moving to a training role in a different setting, still nursing.

I feel utterly broken.
In all honesty, it’s not just COVID although nursing during this pandemic contributes 95% of the reason I’m broken, it’s the historic unjust treatment of us nurses over years and years.

As a newly qualified nurse after 3 years training I was on a lesser wage than my friend who had just joined the police and had undertaken 6 weeks training. (Back in the early 90’s)
I felt terribly wronged even back then.

After years and years of poor working conditions, unrealistic expectations from the public, rubbish rotas, working Christmas Day, my kids birthdays, being assaulted, abused, seeing human stupidity at its worse, no pay rises, no prospect of promotion, being bullied, being unable to do the most basic fundamental nursing care because of dire staffing levels...I have had enough.

I can no longer be a part of a system that in a second would throw me under the bus with even higher risk of tragic and catastrophic mistakes due to conditions and horrendous staffing shortages.
In the next 2 years I predict 60% of my colleagues will be gone from the profession.

I agree with pp I think you will be hard pushed to find a job in the private sector at the moment with good pay and security. No boss would mean no security too. Also very little pensions compared to NHS. I would not be leaving a secure public sector job in the next few years, the fallout from this in the private sector is going to be awful.