I'm a Mental Health nurse who wants to get out of nursing....

polgara

Hi-jacking a bit - but trust me its not that great in management either. No money, government interference, rising general public expectations, increased litigation etc.

We are also threatened and attacked - we have a number of restraining orders against people and in some cases in my department we have to double up to meet with members of staff due to threats etc.

pmarsh1986

Hello. Nurse here too (adult trained not MH). I had to get out of the area I was in before I went mental. Moved into a specialist role and love it. Good team, great manager, good lead nurse etc and been able to make changes to suit the patient. Still have to deal with some crap especially from big bosses and the usual NHS faults but on-the-whole best move I ever made. I still work 60 hours a week (paid for 37.5), earn £28K have to park my car on the dodgiest Glasgow streets miles away but can't have it all I suppose. :rotfl:

When I read your first post I actually thought about ATOS assessor. It seems they need more MH trained staff to deal with the non-physical illnesses which appears to be less acknowledged as affecting a person's ability to work/function.

Croatoan

I applied for a job through an agency the other day and it turned out to be ATOS assessor. Great money, and was very tempted but in the end I couldn't get my head around all the horror stories about them, so turned down the interview. If I had no conscience I would have gone for it though, but basically I joined this profession to help people, not hurt them - and there are already cases I believe of doctors and nurses facing being struck off for bad practice. If it was about getting skivers off the sick, I could handle it, but by all accounts it's almost trying to get everyone off the sick, whatever their illness.

pineapple123

I also found this thread interesting. Some of the previous comments made I can relate to, paperwork and litigation now exceed patient care in many areas of the proffession.

I left a very busy acute NHS hospital (RGN) to work in a small community one and it was the best move I ever did and would never go back to acute again, we have same problems with staffing, paperwork, management, time management etc but to a much lesser degree, we even have a RMH nurse who is a great asset to our 20 bed ward but works the same as an RGN and is always on with another RGN, as we have 2 trained nurses per shift unlike my previous large acute hospital 24 bed ward where I was the only trained on for the majority of my shifts.

Maybe it is worth looking at a job in a community hospital or NHS dementia unit. The care sector is having problems with staffing just look on NHS jobsite, you would have to undertake abit more training but it may be an option worth looking at.

Good luck.

Croatoan

It's very difficult in Mental Health to get into community without prior community experience. Catch-22. As I don't work for NHS and have no community experience it makes it even more difficult. I've done a lot of dementia work and it is without doubt the hardest job in MH (imo), but it's also a field that can be difficult to get out of. You're labelled a care home nurse which arguably has little in common with acutes/forensic/substance misuse areas which most MH nurses gravitate towards. Even though I've met some superb, knowledgeable and caring nurses in care homes, it tends to be viewed as a career dead end, and what with the bad press associated with care homes doesn't always bode well for progression in other fields.

pineapple123

Agree care home nursing is viewed as restricted job progression however it does not always have to be.
Dementia nursing either MHN or RGN is difficult and heavy work however it can lead to job progression with the goverment finally getting a handle on the rising need for specialist nurses in this field and new dementia clinics, however agreed its not for everyone.

As you say sometimes you get caught in catch 22 situation regarding work choice. In my experience sometimes working for an agency can also can restrict career progression and chance to get the more 'popular' jobs.

theoss

Just thought I would add my bit although it is a bit late. I came across this due to researching what working conditions are like in mental health nursing since I quite fancied a career change myself. I doubt it would be avaialble to me since my background, age, gender etc would not 'fit'.

Try being an electrician, in a large company which has similar frustrating managment ideas. You will find your salary level is capped much lower than 45K. You will find no retires early. You will find people have to keep doing the same work physically at 65 that thye did at 25, including working through injuries. You will find safety policies that serve no purpose. You will find annual leave is capped at 21 days per annum. You might find it took 4 years to do a crappy apprenticeship, plus an extra year to complete BTEC, plus all the wiring regulations, climbing a ladder, driving a cherry picker... whatever curses. You will find unSMARt working. A blame culture with some elements of agressive management. Constant driving about (work from home, radius of over 100 miles) pointlessly being sent to jobs which cannot be tackled for whatever reason. Mindless hours just driving stupid cimbersome vans around. Being on your own all the time, no regular contact with anyone, Boring work, mostly just replacing lightbulbs, trying to work round public or office types and all their clutter, whilst having to wear gloves, goggles, plastic hat and friction fit trousers whilst the desk jockey just sits underneath in casual clothes. No purpose (beyond pay), no job satisfaction, no exposure to anything remotely positive... and worse of all absolutely no other job role you can slide sideways into. In fact it all adds to job 'phobia'.

Good luck finding something else. I know how it feels. Worse of all the lack of control about being able to do anything about it.

Croatoan

I'd love to be an electrician. Seriously. Too old now though.
No idea how old you are, but gender's not really an issue in nursing, especially MH nursing. Most units I work on have as many, if not more, males than females. Some nurses don't enter training until their fifties. I was mid forties. The biggest barrier to mature students is the cost of a degree without being able to earn a decent living during that period.

theoss

For elctrician, It's more about being fit in terms of mobility and condition of joints etc rather than a numerical age. Thee are alternatives to apprenticeships now, in the real world there are a few bit of paper and experience needed. For housebashing anyway, lage constructon sites and industrial jobs require more. Although I do think most electricians either want off the vans entrirely, a hands off job, or their own business by 45.

I'm 41. I have known a few rmns but this thread is the first tales of being entirely fed up of the job I have seen. Although I think it is fair to say the red tape and managment crap is something everyone would want rid of. It owrries me to if I do get in, but hopefully it will bearable f the work is interesting. Where I work now we have a lot paperwork, wastefulness and reasons why work cannot progress too.
I'm concerned about the image required in mental health nursing, I have heard conflicting opinions about that. I'm a big, hairy, untidy not capable of dressing smart bloke.

One thing you might think about is training as counsellor. I went as far as level 3 as a way to get a bit of related recent study done, but level four means two days off work every week which I cannot get. Person centred counselling seems to be gaining credability but at the moment seems hard for all those that need regular, well paid work to find it

Croatoan

If you can afford three years off with little income then if you have the desire to be a nurse it's a big plus. Recruiters and universities also like mature people coming into the profession. Don't worry about being scruffy - as long as you're clean, of course. I don't own a suit. MH nurses often don't wear uniform and plenty knock about wards and units in jeans and trainers (though that's beginning to be frowned upon). The idea is that it's important to get away from the us and them syndrome. A lot of our patients have very negative experiences with those in uniform and therefore a uniform can make it harder to form a therapeutic relationship.
The fact that I and many others want out of the profession shouldn't stop you from wanting in. There are still those that love it, and plenty who view it as a good job, even if "love" is too strong. Paperwork is horrendous though. Care assistants and auxilliaries tend to do what most would consider "hands on nursing" while the nurses are more and more tied up with medication, paperwork and meetings.
I have considered counseling, but I'm in my early fifties now and the cost and time involved in retraining, especially with limited prospects at the end is offputting.