If you left the NHS...

[Thegreatescape12345]

...Where did you go?
Is the private world any better? Or did you go full career change? How does it compare? I'm after some inspiration and advice.

I work in rehabilitation, and I just can't take it any more. Cost saving, cuts, ideas to be "more efficient", changes, more cuts. But the demands and pressures on us are growing tenfold. I'm run in to the ground, stretched thinner than ever, and I'm stressed to the max. We have no staff, and the rest are off sick. It's awful. We can't even do a good job to the patients we do see.

I want out, but is the grass greener? I currently have good flexibility and all the security of an NHS job. Small kids. But I bring work home with me every day and I'm a grumpy mum and wife because of it.

I went from the NHS to a private hospital (ill health and NHS not supportive and this was decades ago).

Private had luxuries like air con that actually worked, enough time to actually see patients, all our outpatient appointments were 1 hour.

We had hot drink and bread and butter supplied so you could make toast at almost any time.

On call was actually worth doing.

Health continued to decline so I went to uni and then went in to teaching.

If you can teach the anatomy and physiology units of BTEC / CTEC you will be in demand in FE colleges.

Thank you, I am keeping my eyes peeled for jobs at our local universities too as that's something I'd like to consider.
Does private practice have the luxury of being able to actually do the job you trained to do? I feel like a change project manager, a risk assessor and a case manager... not a clinician doing any actual rehab.

Yes private does let you do your actual job. It's a shame isn't it? We should be able to treat people (because that is what patients are) with best practice.

And a couple of things that happened where I was, at Xmas the Drs got us some bottles, so there was a case of nice red wine and a few bottles of champagne in the staff room, a glass of champagne at the end of the day is quite nice.

Many of my ex colleagues (AHP) are doing private rehab, some full time and some just with a private day or couple of days. They’re really busy. It’s not for me but I can see why they like it.

I went into charitable sector, then FE teaching BTEC then into university teaching.

The charitable sector pension was good at the time ( i doubt it is now), the working conditions were better but they did want their pound of flesh as they were far more money conscious and less wasteful than NHS. The FE sector pay was pretty poor and could be pretty stressful as you end up teaching constantly with no time to plan or prep. University teaching has been much better but there are very few jobs at the moment as most universities are laying off staff. My department has had redundancies the last 2 years running.