chzza

I'm a 2nd year student and obviously all my cohort are worried about not being able to find a job when we finish. 1 of our tutors seems to be under the impression that there's gonna be huge numbers of retirement over the next 2 years- leaving the NHS short of nurses.
Has anyone else heard this?? or is she just tryin to make us feel better?

windog

Or is it just whispering spin to make the governments actions re the NHS seem better

After all the NHS is short of nurses now, its just not hiring any

Proffessional cynic!

tiredwithtwins

when i started my nurse training 20 years ago, they were saying the same thing back then ... hence the regrading/restructuring/retraining/stopping SEN training/introduction of HCAs'/etcetcetc - i could go on for hours!!

there will be some posts made available due to retirements (but i dont see the next 2 years being any different to any other), and money is always found eventually to re-open closed beds. despite yearly media frenzies proclaiming hundreds of newly qualified nurses not getting posts, there never seems to be any ongoing reports of high percentages being unable to find any employment within 3/6/9 months ... one can only presume they do eventually find a post? When i qualified there were a number of my set who went on to other things - out of 36 of us starting in may 87, only 22 of us finished our training ... and i can think of about 4 that I knew of at the time of graduation who didnt continue in nursing. We had to apply for our own jobs - no jobs were made available to us - i bitterly regret to this day following the advice of my tutor; i got 2 posts- one in theatres at CXH, and one in occ health at heathrow .... my tutor went ballistic that i would consider doing something so specialised as occ health and inisisted that i go for the theatre post - which i stupidly did.
bloody regret that one!!

anyway, sorry to waffle on .... but what im trying to say is dont fret too much about the situation - 20 years back newly qualified nurses didnt jsut walk into jobs either, we had to apply here there and everywhere - even take posts in areas we didnt like, but you will find a job eventually - just try to stay positive and make as many opportunities for yourself as you can.

good luck!

sue