Wokring in NHS

[MrMister]

Is it pants working for NHS ?

[katemac1]

I worked in teh Comms department of a large London NHS hospital trust, and it didn't suit me. Too little good quality work, no direction from managers, out of date equipment and poor quality office space. I got out within a year and a half. However, my sister had a fantastic experience in the HR department of a Surrey mental health unit and stayed there for 4 or 5 years. Your experience is going to vastly depend on your your manager and the hospital in question. Hope that helps.

[China Doll]

It's also going to depend on what exactly you want to do in the NHS. There's lots of jobs. I've worked for the NHS since 2002 in various guises and at various trusts, I enjoyed it (and still do) for the most part.

[boxtops]

No, I love it. It's very hard work, long hours, no pay rises for some time due to current financial situation, but you have proper appraisals, the pension scheme is good and the pay structure is - IMO - fair, with decent holiday allocations. I don't work in the hospitals, I work for a primary care trust - different organisations have different management structures but we are all bound by the same pay structure.

It may all depend on where you work and what you do, and how good your management support is, as to whether or not you like it - but I have been in my current post for over 13 years now and I wouldn't consider moving away from it (my job role has changed over the years, I'm not vegetating -don't get me wrong, I've have progressed but still broadly in the same job!).

However - there are huge changes going on at the moment with all the NHS restructuring, and there is a lot of uncertainty, with people with jobs at risk as organisations slim down - and with many people (including me) not knowing where they may be sitting in a couple of years time.

Since the NHS is the third largest employer in the world (after, I believe, the Chinese army and the Indian railways), we can't all be wrong...!