missot

Hello all...

I came to Canada over 2 years ago on a BUNAC visa and was subsequently issued another visa via my employer. In this time, I met and married my Canadian husband and we are currently waiting for my permanent residency to come through.

We have decided that we want to try and make a go of living in England and have booked flights in March to do a recce of the entire UK. The aim is to set up informational job interviews and find a good area to live that suits our adventurous lifestyle. Although my family are over there, they are scattered all over and so we feel no real tie to go and live in a certain area.

Both of us work in healthcare - i am a paediatric occupational therapist and he works in policy. We are both thinking of working for the NHS but I am keen to know what people think about the NHS as an employer so that we go back with our eyes open.

We would be enormously grateful for any thoughts or opinions please!!!

Thank you

janeyk

Hi
Pre moving to NZ I worked in Finance in the NHS for 20 years, all over the country and I think it really depends upon the managemanet style of the place. The NHS is very target driven and there is a big push from the DOH through the Health Authorities to ensure targets are met also the big increase in funding seen over recent years will not be sustained so tough times are ahead the site worth looking at is wwww.nhsjobs.co.uk this lists all nhs jobs so gives you a feel of grades etc. Since 2004 all staff (except docs) are on the same payscales and terms and conditions with full time hours being 37.5 and annual leave starting at 27 days, each band within the payscale has increment points so unless you are at the top of the scale you will get that increase as well as any inflationary one.
Hope this helps

Bijilo123

For you you also have the option of looking at the private sector which may not apply to OH. Think about that for your speculative interviews and good luck!.

livinginreality

Hi I work for the NHS(Mental Health) and have done for a few years.I havent had any problems so far (touch wood)personally.One thing that does really irritate me,and thats people taking a huge advantage of paid sick days.Example:One mental health nurse I know went off on stress leave for 3 months.She returned to work for 2 weeks then decided that she could'nt handle the job so went off again on stress leave.She readily admits to not liking her job.There's no motivation for her to seek other employment when she's getting paid to stay home and relax.This has been going on for months.Other people I work with also go off on a regular basis,which means we then have to work with agency staff which can make our jobs more stressful.Thats the only thing I don't like about working for the NHS.I rarely get sick and enjoy my work,but its not the same for my colleaques!

MR79

ha! good luck, your going need more than that if you want to seriously work for them...

Mummy in the foothills

I used to work for them, I'd have no problem going back, except for the licensing part all changing for me.
http://www.nhsprofessionals.nhs.uk/
http://www.jobs.nhs.uk/

Patzy

I worked for the NHS before coming here in 2005 and will be going back next year and probably working for them again. As somebody else said it really depends on what Health Authority you work for, I personally never had any problems.

dunroving

Are you going to keep us guessing as to why you hold this opinion?

Or maybe you are saying in a roundabout way that it's a lot of fun to work for the NHS ("you'll need more than luck if you want to work seriously for them ...")?

MR79

i work for them at the moment as a contractor at one of the pct's in central london.....have been working for them for over a year now.......i am not impressed with the way everything is run, the politics, how patients are handled by staff, lack of respect for anyone.......so much stuff that would make me never want to ever have a permanent job with them in this lifetime.........i get to go all different sites around london and get to see different departments, staff lack common sense and generally dont like each other or dont get along, so much drama always going on............

scrubbedexpat094

I much preferred working as a midwife in the NHS than in NZ. The maternity system here is pants & practicing was so frustrating that I retired from it in April, at the grand old age of 44!
Good luck

janeyk

Thats the 4th midwife Iread about this week that says NZ midwiffery is the pits

scrubbedexpat094

Now why doesn't that surprise me

minimeeze

I worked in the NHS for 12 years as a midwife in Lincolnshire (6 years), Yorkshire (3 years), Surrey (1 year) and Hampshire (2 years).

My experience of working within the NHS is that the staff were overworked and underpaid. I often worked in situations where staffing was so short that it was unsafe, and there simply weren't enough hours in a day to get my work done. Lunch breaks were a luxury and usually consisted of trying to eat a sandwich whilst driving between visits. I sometimes worked 15 hour days with no break at all. Staff recruitment and retention were real problems, especially in Surrey & Hampshire.

On a positive note, annual leave entitlement was great (I got something like 8 weeks per year), and the NHS pension scheme is one of the best out there.

Would I ever go back to the NHS? NO! I love my job here in Canada as I am my own boss with my own caseload!

made of kent

left May last year, seems a century ago, the NHS is really the management, trust me, I worked in the South East and in the main good, Leicester BRILLIANT! but that was the mid 1990's, Oxford good early 90's, but my old director of nursing is in charge at the JR Oxford, last time I looked and she was fabbo but the good thing about the NHS is you can move around, accommodation is cheap if no kids, and even with kids if they want you they will accommodate, I am 18 year NHS and it's in my blood, and I tell you we visited an ER about 5 weeks ago in the US and it was poor, really poor, first time in my life, I wrote a letter of complaint to a hospital, and this is a rich part of the US! I have only had ONE job in the NHS I hated, and I left after 6 months they where real miseries,) but that the beauty of the NHS, new job round every corner +++ the holidays I was on 8 weeks when I left and that stands for my career, if I go back, 9 months paid mat leave, i had 6 months, paid, and due to holiday, tax back and sat and ord mat leave and sickness I was off 15 months and only had 2 months on tax back + I was earning more on sat and ord mat pay for those 6 months! so now it 9 months.. NHS rocks for patients and staff.. trust me I have been both sides of the counter

made of kent

Just thought I'd quote here, agenda for change could really, really f up her constant sick leave, as before I went on mat leave in 2005 it was almost impossible to sack staff, unless they committed gross negligence or hit someone, agenda for change has changed that for the better, but some hospitals haven't woken up to that call, we had a department that on average had a sickness absence rating of 70 days say.. but a third of them where over a 150 days, couple real illness,the rest realising why not! after the first few sackings the absenteeism rate dropped like a stone.
agenda for change gave hospitals real opportunity to get rid of the dead wood, but some haven't understood it as their HR are NHS entrenched.. as in a friend of mine who was the Charge Nurse, her entire department lost their jobs on Christmas Eve FFS! except her, turned out they didn't actually understand maternity law, and thought they couldn't make her redundant cos she was on Mat leave! cretins... and they never even told her... she found out christmas day! good thing new hospital took them all on in Jan so no break in service
she felt bloody bad that day taking facebook messages, from her staff telling her they where out of work and she hadn't a clue!