Please help me with job ideas, leaving nursing..

[TheLilacStork]

I know it’s a long shot but I’m really struggling to know where to go with my life.
Cutting a long, long story really short, I’m in my mid 40s, can’t face nursing anymore because of background of witnessing lots of bullying and nastiness, really put me off and I can’t see past it. Lost confidence in myself and faith in everything else sadly. Really tried but feel like it’s the end of my nursing career. What do I do now?! Am I too old to retrain as something else? Im interested in so many things. I’m single but have a mortgage. Always wanted to foster but it won’t cover my mortgage and bills I think. Love animals. Drawn to so many different areas. Don’t think I want to do health visiting. I’m very good with people. Kind, hardworking, professional, reliable. Any ideas? I feel silly asking on here but life is too short. Had a recent cancer diagnosis (hopefully should be ok) alongside some other big personal things and this has really compounded the ‘life is too short’ thing! Thank you

What about nursing in a gp surgery or do you want something completely different

Or teaching in university for nurse students

I feel and hear you. I work for an agency. It’s not perfect and it’s not very stimulating but I earn band 7 salary for 24hrs… I work alone I do my job and leave. 24hrs leaves me with a great work life balance and a great salary.

Do you want to retrain, or just move to a different job?

If the former you may find the Mature Study and Retraining board helpful in suggesting routes you might not have considered.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/mature_students

Pains terrible but I wonder how long retraining as a vet nurse would be

Could you try moving into a health improvement type role? There is quite a variety, some people-facing and some not. https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/public-health/roles-public-health/public-health-practitioner

Sorry to hear about your diagnosis
What area is your experience in? An adult nurse or other? Some ideas:

-Join an agency. You'll often get experience in various areas, not just NHS but also private and get a feel for other areas
-From about Aug, many companies recruit nurses to provide flu vaccines from Oct-Dec and sometimes longer. Some recruit to work within NHS trusts, others to vaccinate via BUPA/Nuffield to vaccinate people in the private sector.
-Civil service
-Clinical research
-Health spas/health clinics/gyms

-Osteopathy? I used to visit a training clinic and nearly every student was older and already had a career in something else. There are full time and part time courses. A friend used to rent a room before she set up her own place. She'd pick the hours she did/days of the week etc. I 'think' she charges £60/hr for humans.

She also did another course which was animal osteopathy. Once a week she'd visit local stables and did 'rider and horse sessions'. Along with dogs, cats and other pets.

Thank you so much everyone. I’ll have a good read of these later. I really appreciate the help. I’m actually a children’s nurse with a specialised background, wish I had done my adult training as I think it opens up a lot more possibilities.

Have you thought about about academia? A lot of universities offer nursing degrees and apprenticeships. It’s a tough landscape in HE at the moment, but there may still be roles about.

In fact, I’ve just searched in jobs.ac.uk (HE jobs website) and there are quite a few. You might find something interesting here.

www.jobs.ac.uk/search/?keywords=Nursing&location=

You could try being a Nurse Educator or maybe work in Telehealth?

I heard its an awful job but I could be wrong so might be worth looking into i dont know what its called is it a dla assessor whatever the kid version of pip is

What about research nurse? I work in a paediatric research team based at a large teaching hospital. I do the data management role and our nurses see patients for recruitement, consent and some treatment.

What about a role as an audiology assessor somewhere like Specsavers? That would be ideal for someone good with people.

I read there’s a shortage of speech therapists the other day and it seems decently paid

What qualifications are required for answering 111 calls ?

NHS 111 is a good shout.

I left nursing and went into medical sales... no idea why I thought a shy introvert would be a great salesperson but we live and learn 😆

Some private schools still employ an actual nurse in a "matron" type role. It's often as much about pastoral and mental health support as physical health, and generally a very independent role - might be worth exploring?
You'd probably easily get a job as a higher level teaching assistant in a SEND school (usually a much nicer working environment, colleague-wise) if that was something you were interested in?
Academia is well worth exploring, as is research. Also look out for practice education or pastoral nursing roles or other corporate nursing roles in the NHS - very different working environment to a ward.
I would imagine a larger GP surgery might be very interested in a children's nurse as a practice nurse.
Depending on what you currently do, working in an MDT with therapists could be an option in something like children's complex care or a child development centre?

Hopefully at least on of these ideas is useful!

What about just joining the school nursing team? Go into schools, see young people. They do more than vaccinations, they provide support around sleep, diet and support mental health. I assume it’s a 9-5 and most of the school nurses I see around in education and the county council seem reasonably content.

If you like working with children, maybe health visitor or even working in a nursery/childminding

Hope your cancer treatment goes well and you make a rapid recovery.

On work, did you enter the profession as a graduate? How much do you need to earn and could you take a drop in salary to retrain / establish yourself in a new field? Roughly where in the country are you located?

I had a cancer diagnosis too and it really makes you realise that life is too short to be putting up with 12 hr shifts, bullying and abuse from staff and patients.

Nursing is not what it used to be. I’m a bit older than you,OP but not reached retirement age so still have to work.

I’m browsing local council jobs for when I go back to work as I can’t face doing nursing again. Have you considered SW assistant jobs/ home care coordinator ? You have lots of transferable skills for roles like this. Classroom assistant ?

Occupational health nurse.

I know this is more nursing, but from what I've seen less stressful than many types of nursing.

Gp nurse.

Day centre manager ?

My dcs state secondary school had a matron..

Also a paeds nurse, I went down the vaccination route, under 5’s my own clinics work 8-4 3 days a week (set days) it’s interesting and not too taxing, no nights no weekends. Keeps my registration, team are great but it’s quite remote in terms of the wider team.

school nurse might be an option, here there is opportunity to go in as b5 then do the specialist training. I want to go into health visiting but currently my hours and role suit my family setup and still time for that.

good luck whatever you decide, life is too short to be stuck doing something you aren’t enjoying anymore.

@TheLilacStorkI think children’s nursing keeps many doors open if you like children. Schools employ pastoral care assistants. Maybe a school nurse as suggested? Boarding schools do still have nursing staff. I know health visitor, OT and other roles require extra training but you are not too old! Doing agency nursing pays well but I think the pension is not great. Could be wrong.