Do you have any questions about returning to nursing? NHS experts have answered questions

[EllieMumsnet]

Becoming a parent is one of the most fulfilling jobs that most will ever encounter; it is an amazing time for all. It can also mean that parents may seek a new career path after their parental leave or decide they'd prefer to go back to what they were doing before. If you've been a nurse in the past and would like to get back into it, the NHS would love to answer any questions you may have. Raych is a returnee nurse and Joy is from Health Education England. They can answer your questions about training and support.

Here is what the NHS has to say: “Your nursing skills and experience are needed more than ever before. There has never been a better time to return to nursing and it is easier than you might think. We have fully funded return to practice courses across England; your course will be paid for, and you'll receive at least £500 to help with travel, childcare and book costs. Mentors and tutors will be available throughout your course to build your confidence and get you ready to come back. The length of your course will depend on how long you've been out of practice but wont take longer than 12 months.”

Here is some more information on Raych: Raych qualified as a nurse in 1996 and worked at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, then moved overseas and began a family. She left the profession in 2010 to focus on juggling her family's busy commitments. As her circumstances gradually changed she investigated a return to nursing, then last July, everything came together and she was able to do the Return to Practice course whilst working at the Royal Papworth Hospital. Following this her PIN was reactivated in March 2019 and she is now back in the career she loves.

Here is some information on Joy: Joy has been in the NHS for more than 30 years and is a nurse by background. She is passionate about encouraging nurses to return to practice and has extensive experience of supporting them to successfully return to the nursing workforce. Ask her your questions!

Maybe you’d like to know some more information on how to get into nursing? Would you like to know exactly what the job entails and if any flexible working is available? Are you an ex-nurse wanting to return and have a few questions on exactly how to go about doing this? Or maybe you have questions about the application and training process?

Whatever questions you have about nursing (whether it’s returning to or wanting to start), ask them on the thread below and we will choose approximately 10 for Raych and Joy to answer. Everyone who posts their questions will be entered into a prize draw where 3 MNers will win a £100 voucher of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw!
MNHQ

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Are you considering returning to nursing? It's easier than you think. Sign up now to get your step-by-step email guide that includes a course finder, financial support and work placement information.

I was 2 months off graduating as a nurse but had to leave, if I went back is there a course I could do that wouldn't involve placements in high paced environments? I am too disabled now to go back and be in charge of someone's life in an emergency but I would love to Finnish the course and work in a GPs or similar, where I could help people but not put people at risk with my lack of mobility.

Also "Raych" , her pin was only reactivated in March - 2 months is hardly sufficient time to advise anyone else on the merits ( or not ) of returning to nursing.

More likely to have a realistic view from the nurses on here who have been in for years.

Hello mumofone, I sympathise with your predicament, and suspect there is a large pool of qualified nurses who for various reasons cannot work in a fast paced environment (ie any ward). I do not honestly know how you could complete your training without this, but hopefully the “experts” will be able to advise. In terms of qualified nurses with physical limitations, I would like to suggest the 111 service. I did some agency shifts at my local one and the pay is good, hours flexible, but you need to be up to speed with your IT skills - not everyone’s cup of tea I know but may suit some.
My previous post asked a similar question about how and if nurses with physical limitations could be employed. I know this may be ageist but with the retirement age having risen to 67, is it realistic to expect older nurses to possess the same physical endurance they/ we had in our younger years? I would love to hear the advice of the experts re NHS strategy in respect of the most effective deployment of the ageing and or physically limited workforce.

I suppose ‘Raych’ is in place to give advice on the RTP course, as a recent ‘graduate’, rather than to rave about nursing in general.

This thread is damning. No one will reply to it. They’ll just continue to pretend we don’t exist.

@babyroobs if you have enough hours in this revalidation period to revalidate I would do it - you can knock together the evidence in a couple of hours. Then in 2 years time reconsider what you want to do, either get some hours under your belt in that 3rd year or don't bother. But I do know people who have regretted letting their PIN lapse.

That aside I think this thread shows why the nhs is barrelling towards the crisis that's happening. But hey, they can plug the gaps with nurse associates I'm sure!

Hi @TwinsTrollsandHunz @crosser62 @FadedRed @RollsEyes @ChristmasFluff

Thanks for posting your questions, we just wanted to clarify how your questions will be answered as there seems to be some confusion:

We normally keep Q&A's open for around 2-3 weeks - we are leaving this one open a little longer to ensure we get as many questions as we can. We will then collate around 10-12 for NHS to answer and then post the link to the answers when it's ready (this can take 1-2 weeks to build the page and get the answers ready). We'd expect the answers to be ready some time next month. Unfortunately we can't answer every single question but we do try to make sure we are getting the most asked questions in there.

Those poor NA’s . We’ve all been unofficially downgraded. NA’s doing band 5 work for b4 money, band 5’s doing band 6 work, band 6’s overlapping into 7’s.

I’ll ask a proper question rather than just whinging...

Is there a preceptorship programme for RTP nurses or does it depend on the Trust employing the newly re-registered RN?

Roobs You need to have done 450 practice hours (doesn’t need to be direct patient care) and 35hrs of CPD over 3yrs, plus bits of reflection. You do need to have another registrant though to sign off on the discussion part.

Is there a preceptorship programme for RTP nurses or does it depend on the Trust employing the newly re-registered RN?

Oh, I know the answer to this one! There is always a programme run in conjunction with a university. The programme will have been validated by the NMC but will differ from university to university in the same way a pre-reg course will differ. But should be similar standards.

Cheers Nico, I’m still on the register, though up for reval in Autumn (don’t think I’ll be bothering ().

I wonder how useful RTP nurses actually find them, on average? I have worked with a couple of RTP nurses on preceptorships but wasn’t sure if it was a trust incentive rather than a ‘standard’ (I working in a rural trust offering ‘golden welcomes’ to nurses willing to work on certain wards). TBH, it seemed to be a bit of a tick box exercise rather than a supportive mentorship scenario.

*I WAS working in a rural trust

@EllieMumsnet, I appreciate that is how Q&As usually work and how you planned this to work. But this isn’t a Q&A about which brand of crisps to buy, it’s a Q&A that raises some pretty damming issues about recruitment and retention of the largest group of clinical staff in the NHS. The fact that the NHS ‘experts’ have not even come back early and acknowledged the issues says it all really.

I don’t know what’s worse: the possibility that those planning the thread did not foresee a load of nurses coming in with very real concerns (surely nobody is that clueless?) or the possibility that they planned to ignore these very real concerns and only answer 10 questions.

Naive at best

I have 6 weeks left to go and it's going to cost me £1100 in childcare to complete my degree.

How can the NHS help me get through.

The answer is that they can't. I now have to seriously think if I can afford to continue so I can complete. I'm devastated.

We look after patients but who looks after us.

The preceptorships in our trust are tick boxes,no one checks that they've even been done.
A 12 month back to nursing course requires a separate income from somewhere and a lot of these will be people who left because they can't work childcare around nursing.
In the same way that the loss of the bursary prevents mature students starting training a lack of income will prevent nurses returning.
I have been a nurse for 38 years and it is no longer the job I trained to do and the change has been slow but steady but now we cannot ignore that it is in free fall,that doing extra hours to fill the gaps isn't enough.
The government says it is increasing nurse numbers so we now have to manage our impossible workload and train increasing numbers of students(though I've yet to see the influx we've been told to expect.).

Interesting and as I suspected re the quality of RTP courses, hotter.

I’m sorry that you’ve come so far Bryan and now it all hangs in the balance at the final hurdle, that’s such a sad and pointless waste of your time, effort and new skills.

Promising to increase nursing workforce numbers/adjust the skill mix to improve patient safety (as per Francis) is all very well and good. Recruitment is the ‘easy’ bit. Conditions are so grim and respect for the nursing profession is so low that that retention is the big issue. As hotter and others have said, everyone from pre-reg students to RN’s of 15, 20, 30+ years (who have weathered numerous NHS and nursing crises, this is not our first rodeo) are feeling the unbearable strain.

As for training students, the university which provides students to my area now uses a different method and so rather than mentors having one student at a time, they have 3 or 4. And they wonder why fewer nurses are signing up for the active mentorship courses (which you don’t get extra £ or time for, just just have to fit it in somehow). Don’t get me wrong, we were all students once and I am happy to pay it forward with the next generation of students BUT when we don’t have the resources for patient care, how can we be expected to magic the extra time and resources to give students what they need and deserve?

I agree with so many people on here re the stress etc. It is not just the NHS that needs nurses it is the private sector as well. It seems to me that when the STATS are gathered its just about NHS shortage it does not appear to factor in Nursing/Care Homes. I did RTP in 2009..I have worked in NHS,Private Sector and Agency...it is horrendous.

I qualified almost 30 years ago (retiring soon or would have gone anyway) and would not recommend anyone returns to nursing in the current political climate. It is slave labour, a horrible culture with bullying and sexism rife and nurses are treated appallingly. You don’t even get a decent pension anymore.

How child friendly is nursing for those with school aged children?

Re Child Friendly...you would need to look at outpatients or 9 to 5 roles in nhs or private sector. Ward based roles tend to be long days/ nights..or you may be able to get earlies/lates on wards.

From a mum of a 2 who is considering coming to the profession, how can you help me?
I live in an average costs area. Cost of Living etc pretty standard for us. Our childcare for 2 pre school children is £90 a day.

If I were to study and sign up, what provision is put in place for me? Will my childcare costs be covered? How will I get to my place of study? Will I be expected to cover parking? What about additional costs of wrap around childcare to cover the hours not covered by nursery?

Out patients in many areas are now 8am to 6 pm+.So no longer a child friendly choice.Sone outpatients at weekends as well.
Queen Enid.The NHS expects you work long ,unsocial shifts ,pays lower wages than teachers,police etc .and where there are nurseries at hospitals they cover office hour only.
As far as the NHS is concerned children are your problem.

If you are newly coming in to nursing it is a degree course where YOU pay £10000 to work full time shifts and manage accomodation/placements out of area if needed.
There is no childcare provision.
You work shifts so opportunities to do other work to pay towards your degree are limited to doing extra shifts as a health care assistant.
You could instead become a HCA(untrained health care assistant(,then train to be an associate nurse(band 4) or apprentice nurse.These are paid but still shifts and although a path to registration no one is really saying how.

@QueenEnid - to echo previous poster you wont receive any help toward childcare.

At the end of the day they expect you to know what you are coming into , eg unsocial hours , working Christmas, and expect you to take responsibility for choosing a profession where they are the service needs.

Oh this thread is very sad. The NHS should be showing it is human and can respond to questions like these: otherwise it just puts potential recruits off and comes across as very bureaucratic... so much money is spent on HR advisors and consultants but here is a group of potential nurses just being ignored. Please don't do this.