NHS Mums

[CountryLovingGirl]

Hello,

I was wondering what mums, who work in the NHS, do for childcare when they are working until 8pm.
My job has always had the hours of 9-5 with the odd weekend morning and on-call a few times a month. Now it has all changed to a lot of hours between 8am-8pm and nights (like nursing). Although my children are at FT school I still need childcare (one is in secondary year 7). There dad often works late shifts in his job too.
At the moment I cope as I work PT but have a horrid commute. I have just landed a FT post closer to home but with a lot more late shifts.
Is there anyway around this? Childminder works until 6pm. If I pay for childcare 3-9pm that is 6 hours of childcare to pay for so my fees would go up to pre-school fees. Can you see what I mean? More hours away from my family and less money coming in. We have no grandparents on the scene either. Not allowed flexible working as they are having trouble accommodating the ones who get flexible working now. A few don't do lates due to childcare.
Any ideas? It is harder and harder to continue in the NHS as a mum. But, I don't want to leave my career aarghhhh!

Their dad often works late shifts

It is practically impossible to get childcare for evenings. IMHO a nanny or au pair is the only viable option. We are both HCPs and it doesn't work. Sorry.

I work in the nhs and my husband does a job where he frequently works away. We have no local family to support with childcare. I got a job in the community working office hours, one of us had to change jobs to fit in with childcare. Our local district general has a nursery that opens at 7 but I think it finishes at 6.

Its very hard ..I did use a friends teenage son to sit for some late shifts ..but its wasn't reliable enough..sorry I ended up changing jobs to do less unsocial hrs.

I mean this in a nice way but surely you had a plan for how you would manage this when you accepted the change of job? I agree with Secret Spy your options for evening childcare are limited. What do you do at the moment when you do late shifts? Could you find a 'babysitter' to cover evenings? I work as a nurse and work double shifts so as that I only have to work 3 set days a week under flexible working (2 days in the week, and 1 at the weekend). DH also works in the NHS but in IT and has a 9-5 role. This means on the weekdays that I work I work 6.45am - 9.15pm. DH has a flexible working agreement that syncs with mine so that on the days in the week I work it has been agreed he can work from home or the local office. It works because then on the weekdays that I work I know he is free to pick DD up from nursery. Is there any way you and your kids dads could sync up your working arrangement in a similar way?

But yes, working set days for me is crucial. If I worked an ad-hoc rota like I was doing pre-DD it would just be impossible to plan childcare.

I now work bank shifts on DH's days off btw. Because that's the only way we can both get to work (no room for au pair).

We work set rotas (flexible working requests, both shift workers) and the two days a week we are both at work we have a childminder till 6 then my DM has him till 8.15 when we both get home. If we didn't have my DM we'd have to work opposite shifts every week.

I left a district nursing post after many years as I just could not work the unsocial hours they introduced, and they refused me set working patterns. I became a practice nurse instead which is far more family friendly, although if David Cameron has us all working 24/7 as he plans, I'll be throwing in the towel anyway.

Secret spy can I ask what it is like working bank shifts? I have considered this but would want nhs pension still so would go with a trust. I know sickness pay and holidays wouldn't exist but I'd mould it round my life !

I'm not working for the nhs, its private sector. But there are lots of hospital bank shifts available at my local dgh.

Tbh hospital bank doesn't appeal because they move you, so you accept a shift on ward A but ward D is short so woosh you get sent there. And I'd mind getting band 5 pay after being top of band 6 for years.