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.

I’m a critical care nurse, SALT are so valuable to our patients! We love you guys.

This last year has been horrific. My dept was completely slammed with covid. We were one of the worst hit in the country. We have several members of staff with PTSD and I can only see more being affected and a future mass exodus. We had 4 NHS staff die from covid on our unit. It was horrific.

Love to all my fellow NHSers

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.

THIS

I’m making plans to leave.
After 13 years I’m done.

Long days with no breaks, work stresses, the pressures, management having no appreciation for how hard you work, staff at breaking point, morale on the floor, crying at the thought of going to work and exhaustion does not make an environment or job I want to be in anymore.

@Racoonworld

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.

I think the point is for most of us, the lack of security vastly outweighs working in the NHS!

@Xigris

I’m a critical care nurse, SALT are so valuable to our patients! We love you guys.

This last year has been horrific. My dept was completely slammed with covid. We were one of the worst hit in the country. We have several members of staff with PTSD and I can only see more being affected and a future mass exodus. We had 4 NHS staff die from covid on our unit. It was horrific.

Love to all my fellow NHSers

Thanks 😍 I know we can do great things on ITU given the chance but mostly, people don't really understand what we do (management) and think we're just overly expensive and pointless.

Would you consider working in schools OP? A bit chip pan into the fire I guess, but my friend works for a company (so non NHS) as a SALT and is in a SEN school- she does 3 days a week and provides support and carries out appointments in an environment familiar to the students. She absolutely loves it, pay is okay, but mainly better work life balance, highly respected, rewarding- she worked in the NHS for 10 years prior. There are loads of transferrable skills, even if it takes a bit of unpicking.

The working conditions and low pay are ridiculous. I started in an entry level job with another government department, although I have a degree no specific skills or quals required for the job, and it was the same pay as for a newly qualified nurse (minus shift allowances etc)- so unfair and not reflective of the level of responsibility or the work itself. I really hope covid is a turning point and the government realise that assuming people will join and stay as they feel its their vocation isn't enough to account for all of the crap. I also get about wanting to leave even though the job market isn't great, you know where your breaking point is, and no job is worth it.

Another vote for SALT being amazing

I'm just going to watch this thread with interest OP. I'm a salt too and always wonder if theres a future outside the NHS... I don't think the general public understand what we do let alone the hospitals. PP who's talking about working in a school for example .. unlikely to understand that that's a totally different job to the one you've been doing and you couldn't just walk into that. Also, totally different stresses. I'm not sure I could face education.

PP who's talking about working in a school for example .. unlikely to understand that that's a totally different job to the one you've been doing and you couldn't just walk into that. Also, totally different stresses. I'm not sure I could face education.

Well yes it's not a bespoke professional career plan for OP, and yes, they ask for experience as a SALT in any environment, so theoretically you could, whether you'd want to is a different matter. OP said they're unhappy at the moment in a hospital environment and feels it would be the same elsewhere in the same environment, sorry for bothering. Jeez.

I, also, agree that SALT are an essential and valuable service-the trust you work for are fools not you respect your team and what you do.

Is there a community SALT in your area, OP? Until you figure out what you want to do, can you move to a different trust?

@Xigris love the name ! Miss the days of drawing it up !
We have quite a few staff retiring or moving on. The retirees are ward managers, one is dropping a grade and working one day a week, another is leaving altogether as her pension is extremely generous.
I'm 54 and will probably move on to flexi retirement in 2022, 1-2 days a week if poss. Mortgage paid off but still have school/college age kids.
Op In ICU speech/language therapy are so helpful but don't get the respect they deserve.

If financially/risk you’ve weighed it up, then do look at what is out there. Looking for jobs online and doing hobby coding help me last 3 more years - and then a very lucky opportunity came up that took people without software degree to go into IT.

Realistically workers like us are not going to change the big picture of how the nhs works, PFI, underfunding. Look after yourself and your family. Good luck OP.

If you are a qualified health professional (Allied, Nursing or Medical) and prepared to leave the UK there are plenty of vacancies in NZ. Majority of health board roles are advertised at www.kiwihealthjobs.com/

Most professionals won't have an issue getting NZ registration and critical health care workers can still enter NZ (but do have to quarantine).
www.immigration.govt.nz/about-us/covid-19/border-closures-and-exceptions/critical-purpose-reasons-you-can-travel-to-new-zealand

@Schonerlebnis - haha yes and the pharmacist being TERRIFIED that we’d balls it up as it was a bazillion pounds. I was the first person to give it years ago on my unit. A man with septic arthritis who was SO BLOODY sick. He made a full recovery and came back to see us with his beautiful black Labrador .

Love my job, just hate how we’re treated.

Leave to where though? It's as safe and secure job as you'll get at the moment given the decimation of other industries.

A bit like school teachers though some will consider leaving to save their mental health, which is important.

Schools and hospitals are not going to be a fun place to work for the forseeable.

Additionally though this Covid crisis could cripple the NHS and as OP alluded to the sacred status it holds with public (hence the one thing the Tories have not tried to fully privatise).

It's an extremely expensive service anyway (when you way up the cost of it in GDP terms and NI/tax contributions) but it's been cut to the bone under the Tories already and where will the money come from to throw more and more money at it, given the hit in GDP?

I get how your feeling but every day I am so grateful I have a job in the NHS.

Whilst I was jealous of friends on furlough and not working, now i realise how lucky i am and I can book a holiday for next year and buy my kids what they want for Xmas as my job is secure. I worry my husband might not have work at some point but I am so grateful I will.

I too have never been so stressed in my life so do understand where you are coming from.

Have you looked at other roles in the nhs, maybe non clinical ? Operational manger or quality ?

Those that are thinking of going after twenty plus years are you taking your lump sum then at 55? I’m a nurse and I do t think I want to actually leave the profession and I thank god every day I have a job that doesn’t pay too bad and that I get 7 weeks a year off. Have any of you thought about working in different deptartments? All of ours that have left have either taken the pension and come back just two
Days a week with their monthly income the same as when they’ve been full time or, they come back as bank working what suits them. I don’t have the imagination or inclination to change careers in my 50’s I wouldn’t know where to start

Watching with interest too OP , am in similar situation to you and sympathise completely, especially with the poor management and not wanting a boss!

Do it.

Haven't looked back.

Sad but only way to survive. Mentally.

@Xigris

I’m a critical care nurse, SALT are so valuable to our patients! We love you guys.

This last year has been horrific. My dept was completely slammed with covid. We were one of the worst hit in the country. We have several members of staff with PTSD and I can only see more being affected and a future mass exodus. We had 4 NHS staff die from covid on our unit. It was horrific.

Love to all my fellow NHSers

I can not imagine what this must have been like - heartbreaking for you all.

I am 20 years in NHS and currently in a community admission avoidance team and covid has given me a new lease of life as I have stayed in the team that I was redeployed to back in April. It gave me the opportunity to work with some really great therapists and reignited my fight to make things better for people. There have also been tough times but with a really great manager who is very good at nipping things in the bud before they escalate.

This might now be if help OP but my respect for SALTs has always been incredibly high. Professional, articulate, smart, person-centred I’m always a little bit in awe.
I can understand how you are feeling but the NHS does truly need AHPs to keep the wheels turning.
I nearly left physio as I hated acute hospital work so much. Moved to community and on the whole it’s a million times nicer.