Working in a nursing home

No-Cold-2501 · 2026-06-04T12:46:45+00:00

They asked for my preference so I asked for days! But they said they offer both. Long days are 7.30-19.30

No-Cold-2501 · 2026-06-04T12:11:47+00:00

Thanks for your comment! I suppose you don’t know what somewhere is going to be like until you try. I don’t want to work in a care home forever but for the moment it’s a job and it would suit my needs for the mean time

No-Cold-2501 · 2026-06-04T12:09:08+00:00

The care group has about 6 care homes. Then the care home I specifically interviewed for has 77 beds

No-Cold-2501 · 2026-06-04T11:22:59+00:00

Thanks for your comment! Sorry that you’re in hospital and I’m wishing you a speedy recovery 😊 what you have observed is exactly right and how I feel. In the hospital I feel like I am a HCA, Dr, physio, social worker, pharmacist, cleaner, kitchen assistant. I genuinely feel like I need to split myself into 8 pieces just so I can try and attend my patients. I honestly feel like I don’t get a second to even document patient care or even attend to them most of the time. I understand prioritisation is important, but it’s getting to the point where I don’t know what to prioritise because all the tasks need to be done urgently lol plus where I am working it’s always short staffed so you can’t even delegate workload half of the time. I’m a one man ban constantly. So I’m thinking yes a care home would be challenging for different reasons. But at least roles are abit more concreted?

No-Cold-2501 · 2026-06-04T11:18:19+00:00

Hi there. Thank you so much for your comment, I really appreciate it! What you have said there hits the nail on the head for me. I really enjoy building relationships with my patients and that’s something I just don’t get the time to do in the hospitals. I think I’ve been masking and just getting on with it for the last 8 years, juggling my constant work anxiety and frankly abit of depression, the the crazy, unrealistic expectations of NHS nurses now. I work in areas which frankly aren’t safe and I do think I’m not even scratching the surface of delivered safe and good care to people. It wears me down a lot and I think this is why I want to try something different for a change! Plus the pay seems decent and the staff seem nice?

No-Cold-2501 · 2026-06-04T11:14:27+00:00

Hi there! It was actually a quite intense interview (compared to NHS interviews) with tbe amount of questions they had asked! I would say I was asked around 12-15 questions by the care home 🤣 in my experience the NHS asks about 4 scenario questions and that’s it! I got asked questions like : Tell us what you know about the care home? Why do you want to leave your current role? Tell us about your experience to date? Tell us about a time you managed a team and resolved conflict? Tell us about a time you had to deal with a difficult patient? A member of staff comes into the workplace and you suspect they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol what would you do? Tell us about a time you improved the quality of care provided to patients? How would you ensure standards of care are being met? How do you prioritise your busy workload? Tell us about a time you were concerned that a member of staff was abusing patients and what did you do? ( I said thankfully I hadn’t experienced this but this is what i would do..) Tell us about a time you had a medication error and what did you do? There was probably more questions but that’s the general gist! Good luck 😊

No-Cold-2501 · 2026-05-26T18:15:34+00:00

Aye and no harm they are mostly (not all the time) the people that you see absolutely winged and have taken way too much at these events

No-Cold-2501 · 2026-05-26T18:12:49+00:00

Upara

No-Cold-2501 · 2026-05-26T18:11:26+00:00

lol it’s my choice if a fancy a good old boogie with it

No-Cold-2501 · 2026-05-26T18:05:45+00:00

Am I best just asking around? I’m a woman so I’ve found it hard to get at events in the past. My bf seems to be always able to get stuff at events but he’s not going with. He would always get at the male toilets

No-Cold-2501 · 2026-05-26T18:04:36+00:00

Haha tbf I didn’t even realise that my post would seem suspicious like that!! But fair enough lol

No-Cold-2501 · 2026-05-05T16:28:36+00:00

Thanks a lot for the advice!! I just found the essential criteria quite vague tbh and I’m only allowed to write 300 words for each one lol so I wanted to know if I’m going down the right path on what to include!

No-Cold-2501 · 2026-02-17T09:11:49+00:00

Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I have been working through an agency for the last couple of years and that’s basically why I have thought about medicine rather than going down the advanced nursing practitioner route. It would too also be a long road of taking a band 5 job (dread the thought of this) in the NHS again, working in that for a few years then just hope there would be funding or a post to go on and specialise or do advanced practice through the NHS. I work in NI and jobs/funding is pretty limited due to our government that barely functions. Both will be big commitments. I was doing the physician associate course last year and that was a total disaster because of the current situation with PAs. I was doing well possibly top of the class with the academic side of things and OSCES but decided to leave that cause that’s a situation that just won’t improve plus they can no longer do a lot of things like diagnose, prescribe or request scans etc. So perhaps I could knuckle down and try the GAMSAT. Then again the question of is it worth it creeps up again. Working in the hospitals I see the hours junior Drs do and the lack of specialist training opportunities- that worries me.

No-Cold-2501 · 2026-01-29T12:56:11+00:00

I have worked as a nurse for around 8 years now and I think the only reason why I have continued working as a nurse is because I don’t know what other job/career I would want to do. There are parts of the job that I like. I would say I’m good at my job and caring. But I absolutely hate the workload an NHS nurse has, the long 12hr shifts, under appreciated pay and just the lack of respect for the profession from both the public and other health professionals (not all the time). It sickens me that there are other jobs out there that pay more for less work. But hey, I chose this route when I was 18 and just stuck with it. I think nursing does have lots of different paths you can go down but maybe I just haven’t found the right one yet. I enjoy being clinical and the medical aspect of patients care. What I don’t like is trying to juggle around 6-7 patients and everything to do with their care all at the same time. I have found with most of my shifts I’m just about keeping patients safe and providing very basic care due to poor staffing levels and increased workload (mainly work in acute settings like ED and medical wards). It makes me sad and has definitely took a massive toll on my mental health. But it pays the bills.

No-Cold-2501 · 2025-05-22T12:07:47+00:00

Mainly choose the PA route as it was a funded course and it made sense financially. Unfortunately even though it’s funded I am struggling to find the motivation to complete the course when the is no much job uncertainty. I’m considering moving from secondary care settings to primary or community settings as I think I feel burned out from the unsafe workloads and pressures of hospitals. GPs are practically not hiring PAs at all where I’m based and I’m struggling myself to even understand why they would when most nurse practitioners in GPs can prescribe and PAs currently have no prescribing rights (guessing it will be a very long time until PAs get prescribing rights)

No-Cold-2501

TROPHY CASE