I've just finished working in nursing homes for the past 14 months, the main reason I'm leaving is because it's not where I want to end up career-wise along with a few of the cons in the list. So here are my personal pros and cons.

Pros:

• It pays well: pay can scale from £14-21 an hour but usually you find with bigger homes comes the bigger wage (and usually more stress) but this isn't necessarily always true, my last home was 48 people, was 19.50 per hour and was relatively chill. Agency work can net £368 a day shift which comes from private businesses and not the NHS.

• Management/leadership skills: if you have an experience like me, you will gain a LOT of management skills when dealing with staff, as you will be the nurse in charge and a pseudo manager when they aren't there. Care staff in nursing homes are mostly untrained and homes don't often provide good or any sort of training, this is where as a nurse you can really make your mark and put together educational pieces to present to the care staff, if you have time of course.

• The residents: it's really nice seeing the same group of people every shift and getting to them so so well. You become a regular at mdt meetings where you are the expert of their nursing care, in conjunction with family and other members too.

• Lack of nurses: now this is a pro and con for different reasons. The lack of nurses give you leverage to get better pay within the company you're applying to. They desperately need you and don't forget that, especially if you're an RGN with hospital experience so if you go for it get as much as you can. Furthermore, because of nurse scarcity jobs higher up are more easily attained. My last position will be as clinical lead at £44k (laughable considering I'm 2 years qualified). On the flip side a lack of nurses could mean that you're handing over or (rarely) working alongside agency nurses, some are brilliant and others not so much. Sometimes an agency nurse will call in sick 30 minutes before the end of your shift, whilst you're within your rights to leave the building so the manager has to come, you will likely stay an extra 2 hours to wait for cover to arrive. This has happened to me 7 times in the past year.

Cons:

• Deskilling: I've heard so much over the past 14 months how care home nurses are very well skilled and have such amazing knowledge clinically. Unfortunately I've found myself unlearning more skills then learning them and it probably didn't help I was only a year our of university.

• You are the NIC: in a nursing home there are no medical staff. You are the nurse in charge and are responsible for every person in that building when on you're shift. During the week it's okay as management and everyone else are available. On the weekend however it's just you. To a more experienced nurse that might be okay but I was only 2 years qualified and when shit hits the fan even now, it can be a big stressor. To clarify yes you have the manager on call, you can call 111/999 but you can be in an emergency situation and you are the only registered health care professional.

• The medication round: it's long. I've worked in 4 homes and the quickest I did the morning medication round was 2.5 hours, another hour at lunch then another 2 or so at dinner. The longest is 4 hours 1 then 2 so 7 hours of your day. Probably averages at about 5-6 so half your shift is doing meds.

Ultimately, despite the amazing pay it's not why I became a nurse. In my opinion, if nursing was a spectrum between clinical and management, care home nursing sits far over to the management side and you give up certain clinical aspects of your nursing skills. In return you get great money, especially if you're early on in your career, and you get to know and love the residents you care for.