A little lost

Hello everybody

I’m am a qualified nurse now, as well as continuing my studies. I am a LD nurse in Scotland.

It’s the working as a nurse part, I got my “dream job” through the NQN scheme and initially absolutely loved it, but staff sickness and staff leaving made it feel an unsafe environment. It was a forensic environment. Which initially had strict protocols and rules (I did bank shifts for 4 years as a nursing assistant in all wards and never felt these altered) however with major staffing issues rules became flexible causing staff splitting and a constant on edge atmosphere. I left. I built excellent relationships with a couple of patients as they were in need of constant intervention, but felt the rest were slipping under the radar as all resources were used maintaining a safe environment with a dangerous and difficult patient group.

Now I work for a private company, I was misled in interview, the job is not what it was explained to be, it is that and then some, I am running a floor of 30 (meds, care plans, nursing interventions, meals, meetings, admissions, general hospital transfers and EOL patients) I also oversee the building of 90 residents, the other units are run by senior healthcare workers but any nursing interventions are part of my daily tasks. I cannot manage the workload, discussed with management and discussed the differences in what we discussed and I was assured she was working on making it happen like expected, where I am not included in numbers and only on shift to complete clinical activity (there is a lot across all 4 units).

I am still within probation period and requested to be dismissed at the end of this. However I have a 16 week notice period- is there any way at all to get out of such a thing? Should I resign and use this time to find something else or find something and find a quicker exit somehow?

Finally, am I the problem? I have not been a nurse a year and I am looking at a 3rd job which I know looks awful. Going back to job one saves face slightly but I don’t know if I can continue to feel as I did there. Both jobs are intensely stressful in different ways!

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Reply 1

Hunt1000

hi. Congrats on graduating; im not sure anyone here will be able to help answer your queries on this. may i suggest reddit, the UK nurses groups. one of those should be able to help.

I'm about to qualify myself. I think unsafe, is not worth your pin, you have to guard it, if something goes wrong they will just blame you. you need into a supportive environment, are you still in preceptorship? your supposed to get additional support in that time. if they can not even do that the lace is not suitable. i would leave for another place.

have you tried prison yet? i never felt as safe as when i worked on placement there. workload is generally better. no where is perfect, their is a lack of staff most places, trusts have used their budgets, and can not hire all the staff they need. its why some new grads are having trouble finding work.