spammy

The hours, shifts, holidays, pay and conditions. Is it better or worst than working in the uk. What are the nz staff like. Would love to hear from any SCBU staff.

Thanks
Spammy

Gill and Rob

Hello, More than happy to give you some information.
Shifts tend to be 7-3.30pm or 2.30- 11pm or 11-7am. Vey few places seem to do 12 hours shifts. It is standard to a 40 hour week.

In the DHB's (District Health Boards), salaries start at $40,000 for a new graduate nurse to $54,000 which is for 5 years and over experience. This is for staff nurses. Clinical Nurse Managers, Clinical Nurse Educators etc are a separate salary scale (Grades 1-8), with Nurse Practitioners being on the top grade of $80-93,000.

Annual leave has just gone up to 4 week for the whole country. No superannuation, but check out Kiwisaver which has just been introduced.

NZ is used to having an international work force, so you will quite often end up working with lots of other Brits.

Personally I would say NZ was far better than the UK for working conditions.

Any more questions just ask. Sorry can't speak for SCBU, but if you have any specific SCBU questions I'll pass them on to a collegue.

Gill

spammy

Thank you, I just want to make sure I don't jump out of the frying pan into the fire!

Sugo

Hi

Well be really careful where you choose to work.

DONT work at HUTT HOSPITAL or WELLINGTON. Wish i could shout that nice and load.

Ive finished with these two, yeah the nurse to patient ratio is better than the NHS but you dont get looked after and they treat skids on sheets better than they do their staff.

there are alot of international nurses and doctors, however there is a strong biomedical model in action. Doctors treat nurses like handmaidens. Bit like NHS 20 yrs ago.

Ive found many nurses from UK prefer to work in the community rather than hospital because the conditions are so poor in hospital.

The latest is talks of having truancy squads' who will visit you at home to make sure you are sick when you call in ill. They didnt think that they should look into why your off ill, could it be the crap rosta, the fact you haven't had a weekend off in 3 months, and youve had enough of working 6 or 7 pm shifts in a row. Or maybe the crap managers who after youve been punched by a patient expect you to apologize to the patient????

im sure some might think the NHS is the same, but alot of nurses i talk to miss it.

So just be carful where you go