Nursing

[dinny]

Hoping Chapsmum esp will see this. Am kind of thinking about change in career... Nursing appealing (in some ways) but......can't afford to go back to college, so am thinking auxillary. What's the lowdown? tia, D

depending on what branch of nursing you go into, you could be able to work for year or so as a nursing assistant / support worker and complete an NVQ3 in care and then be seconded on full pay to do your nurse training. This doesn't happen in every trust - it usually depends on the cost. Our Trust is part of an education consortium, which in essence funds the training - so the refund (90%) is used to cover the hours, so there's little financial lost to the service. As a result we second, on average, 4 support workers a year.

you can do nurse training with a bursary - around £6K (for over25's) all tax and NI free. There's also all the added bonuses of being a student as well - free overdrafts, access to student loans, cheaper council tax etc. You could then say work 15hrs a week for a nursing agency to rake in a bit more money - do night shifts and have some time to study too! Nowadays there might even be reduced childcare available.

The training itself is pretty flexible - our uni the students do 2 days (but might only be 2x 3hr lectures over 2 days) in college and then have to achieve their placement hours but of course these can be achieved throughout the whole 24hr shift pattern, so you might be able to lessen childcare costs if this is a concern.

DH did his RMN conversion during the first 8mths of DD1 life - he always seemed to be at home.

lexiemum took the words right out my mouth.

If you stay in england a carrer in nursing is vey fast prgressing, if you stay in scotland think twice.

term time is very easy, you can work agency no problem. placement time is a bit more difficult but it really isnt as bad financially as yo umight think.

The good thing about being a nurse is that you will always have a job, and you can pretty much always find a job that will suit you.

It really depends what your looking for as a career. A good auxillary is worth their weight in gold. They provide basic nursing care which is the most essential and first skill any nurse should lear. Helping patient with basic hygiene and helping them through their daily life in hospital.
Some auxilliaries can take on extended roles. The ones in our hosp put on plastercasts and do dressing etc. I think this is fantastic, but it really is not reflected in their pay IYKWIM.

In all honesty I think you are a very intellegent woman who would make a fantastic nurse, especially conseddering the amount of knowledge you've been able to learn and use looking after your ds.

If you want to be a nurse go for it, start as an auxilliary to get some experience. You'll soon know if it right for you.

I know work part time and do a speciality agency shift every other week that I get payed a lot of money for so it really is financially viable.

Dinny I could CAT you if you want a furhter chat.

Thanks for these posts. V interesting reading, esp that can be seconded to train as a nurse 'proper'. Don't really know where to start in terms of applying etc...?

I want to be a nurse as I want to give something back a bit. Love my job atm but it's hard to juggle with kids as it's a long distance now we've moved.

Does having a degree (not science-based though) make any difference to training? TIA (esp Chapsmum calling me intelligent !!!!)

HI Dinny.

One thing I'd like to point out is that not all colleges have the same type of course layout. I'm assuming it is still the same where I trained, but there we had x amount of weeks in college and then x amount of weeks on placement. This is better in terms of continuity, but can pose more of a problem for childcare. If however, DH is able to do nursery drop off and/or pick up, it wouldn't be too big a problem. And everywhere is becoming more and more flexible with shifts, such as long days, which means most weeks you only work 3 shifts. Also a mixture of nights and weekends would be required, which I hated as a single person but with a family I can now see to be desirable .

I really hope I am not sounding overly negative, but I just wanted to add, that although gaining experience as an axillary imo, is pretty much essential to check you will love the job, I am not so sure that you could rely on such a position to provide a secondment opportunity in the short term. There is, IME much competition for places and I think although worth a try, would be perhaps overly optimistic to rely on this.

Your local hospital will have a list of positions available. Or if you have no idea at all which area of nursing appeals to you I always reckon an excellent starting place is the hospitals nurse bank. Here you will be able to choose your shifts on all the wards in the hospital as they become available. You say when you can work and you can choose which shift you fancy. The only drawback with this type of work is that you may get cancelled a fair bit, with no monetary reimbursemant however late they cancel you!!

In most cases the hospital will put you into training for basic life support, first aid, etc, and provide you shadowing shifts on friendly wards to show you 'what' to do. A great confidence builder.

I don't think you will be an auxillary for long. It is a nice starting place but you are as CM said, a bright lady and you will see a great many things that you will want to do differently and often the best way to achieve that is to become a fully trained nurse.

Also worth mentioning at this point then that most universities recruit for nursing twice a year, so get a few months experience apply, and I'm sure you will do brilliantly. If you can afford to earn around 6k, I'd do it that way to ensure you achieve your potential quicker.

I HTH and I have sounded really negative.

'I haveNT sounded really negative.' And I bloody previewed!!

Dinny I am training to be a nurse right now. I also have an English degree.

Some universities (Teesside and I think one other?) do post-grad courses for people already qualified to degree level. There are some accelerated courses for people with related degrees (sciency mainly) what is your degree in?

In my trust secondments are VERY sought after, I think about 2 people a year are seconded so whilst it is probably the best way to train it is very difficult to get into.
Like Chapsmum says if you do the Diploma and bank work you can do ok for money. You get some childcare costs covered I believe but the money can take time to come through so if you do really want to go for it make sure you have enough funds to cover you for at least a month.

You can train to be an adult/child/learning disability/mental health nurse, adult courses obviously have the most places!

Being an auxilliary is a really good place to start, good experience etc, but you don't necessarily have to have it.

I pressed reply to soon.

At my uni we do block placements/block uni. Uni is full time 9-5 4 days a week, and a Wednesday morning. On placement we work full time 37.5hrs a week, and technically our placements can rota us in, my current placement allows me to choose my hours (as long as I work 40% of my time with my nurse mentor) but other wards do not, so don't bank on being able to choose your hours. Some placements such as community/out patients also require you to work Mon-Fri 9-5. Taking time off sick can be difficult as well because you have to complete a certain amount of hours on placement/at uni to qualify.

The course has a very high drop out rate because it is not terribly well paid and beacsue the shift work can be demanding.

I do really enjoy it but find it quite stressful sometimes.

Hi, Flossam and Smurfgirl. Thanks sooo much for posting all this info. It's something that I've always thought about but I've gone down a totally different route.
Can you give me an idea of what kind of shifts you work and what you do for childcare? With my current job I work pretty anti-social shifts and dh looks after the children (but I only work 12 hrs pw). But they're prob not as anit-social as shifts worked by nurses (I work a Thursday 4pm-10pm and a Sunday 7.30am till 1.30pm)

There are usually earlies, lates or nights. earlies are around 7-730 to 2-3 pm ish. Lates tend to be 1.30-2.30 start to 9-10 finish. Long days can be all sorts! Depending where you are. In my new job I can do 12.5 hours, either from 7am to 7.30 pm or 9am to 9.30 pm. Where I am now, there are just long days, from 7.45 to 8.15 day or night.

Short nights are usually around 9-7.30 etc.

For childcare up here, before he went down to Bristol DP worked long days four/five on, four/five off, and I worked 0ne or two shifts week, one permanent, one as a bank shift for more flexability. So around 23hrs a week.

When I get back to bristol I'm going back full time, so the plan is at the moment to do two/three long days a week, plus weekends, not sure if I will do short shifts at weekend and have to occaisionally ask friends/family to be with DS for a couple of hours. I'm going to work the long days as set days I think and have childcare for three days. DP doing short shifts so can drop off pick up DS and I will work opposite shift pattern to his IYSWIM.

Bet you wished you never asked??

Sorry, to clarify, up here in London I was able to work my shifts around DP with no extra childcare.

phew, Flossam! that is hectic!

what sort of nursing do you do?

Atm Intensive Care.

In a month or so Upper GI Surgical.

I'm a surgery girl. Most people quickly realise whether it is surgical or medical nursing they prefer. ITU was good experience.

Typical shifts in my trust (Hull) are earlies 7-3, lates 12-8, long days 7-8.

I don't have children Dinny so not an issue for me. People on the course seem to rely on family a lot.

You do placements in loads of different wards so you see a good mix whilst you are training!

(Flossam I think I like medical!!)

surfgirl. I like a bit of routine and familiarity me!!

I am on an othopedic ward at the mo, if I see another confused old lady with a broken hip I may cry Love looking after the quite poorly patients so wondering if critical care will be a field I enjoy!

I DO enjoy it. The only thing is is that it sometimes takes away from the job a bit not being able to communicate with the patients. Put it this way, when I first got there I really was impressed by all the machinary, but now I really would most often take quieter patient where I can spend more time and provide more care. I miss the pleasantly confused old ladies giving me a bit of a private giggle! Mad I know. wonder how long it will last!

when i say communicate i should make it clear i mean verbal comms.

Smurgirl my sypmathies! I worked in Trauma & Orthopeadics for 2 years after qualifying.

Trained from 92-95, did T&O for 2 years then moved into community nursing. Did my District Nursing degree from 00-01. Am now an H grade (band 7) manager of 5 DN teams.
As chapsmum said, pretty good acceleration in nursing

Don't fancy ITU Flossam, maybe HDU? Can't wait to spend time with the outreach time. My first placement was on a medical ward that had quite a lot of very poorly people so maybe something along those lines??

I enjoy the discharge planning in orthopedics, but feel like the care of the patients can be quite reptative. I enjoy my old ladies with dementia, just find some of the cares to be repetative.

captaincavemansmummy, my next placement is community, hoping to be placed with a HV, nervous about leaving the wards though!

DN are fab to go out with. Had one of my best placements with DN's.

SG, I never fancied ITU either, but got offered the job at St Thomas' and would have been mad to turn it down!

Guess its horses for courses....I can't imagine working in a hospital because I love the continuity of care in the community.
The autonomy is a little daunting at first but really fab.
Depends what you want out of your placement I guess. Are you studying adult nursing? HV would be interesting but maybe more suited to Child branch? However, they do a lot of public health type work too.

I hope I get a good community placement, rumours going round that some people will be placed in PHARMACIES! That better not be me, can't see how that will help me to become a nurse, grr.

The gastro ward in my trust is dead good for students so would love a placement there, I have to say that surgery is slowly growing on me, maybe I would prefer general surgery?

Would miss patient contact on ITU and is it not quite upsetting dealing with such sick people?

it can be very much so. But you do get 'used' to a level of illness etc and dealing with it IYSWIM. Most people get out. The really sad ones are where you don't think they ever will get out, and they just lie there for weeks/months not making progress.

Yes I am doing adult nursing!

I spent time with a nurse practitioner and her job seemed wonderful, maybe one day I will be able to do that!

ICU just seems very daunting I think, my friend was in the neuro ICU for a while and it just seemed so sad in there , girl I am placement with said she found the 1 patient 1 nurse thing quite boring, had never considered that.

I am loving my training though, so so fab, been told by loads of nurses that they think I am a good student so really focused. Can't wait to qualify!! Only 2.5 years to go

Hi. Just wanted to say good luck with the rest of your training. I work in paeds oncology and have been there for nearly ten years in different roles with reasonable promotion prospects. Its a tough speciality to be in but highly rewarding too and I enjoy it. Hope everything goes well for you!