Soon to be newly qualified nurse: community/district team or community hospital?

Pippynurseuk · Mar 26, 2018

I can't really give pros and cons but didn't want to read and run.

My only experience was going straight into community, I knew that was what I wanted to do and had no interest in working on a ward first, I would have hated it. I may well be wrong because I've never done anything but community but I always imagine that you might be a bit better supported on a ward. My experience was that I was pretty much thrown in the deep end, partly that was down to the pressures on our service and the way things were being run at the time. And then just the fact that you are out there on your own with only a phone as a lifeline. (You can guarantee that when you need them all your colleagues are too busy to answer!) on one memorable occasion when no one was answering I just phoned a random ward at the hospital just to speak to someone who knew what they were doing!

On the other hand the state of the NHS at the moment there's no guarantee a ward is going to be any better.

Sometimes I'm a little jealous of the girls who have worked on various wards just because they bring a different element of knowledge. It's nice to have a skill mix where you've got one person who's really knowledgable about kidney stuff, one person who's really knowledgable about surgical stuff, another person whose an expert on orthopaedic stuff. Having said that when we have newcomers come to us from the wards they still have to learn our job from scratch because it is just so different. The basic foundations of nursing, assessment, time management, problem solving etc etc you will learn anywhere. I just felt that I might as well be learning all that stuff in the context of where I wanted to spend my career. I was also pretty confident, like 99.9% sure that community was what I wanted to do long term.

If I did ever change my mind and want to work in the hospital, I appreciate that I would find it very different and have a steep learning curve but I do know people who went into community straight from qualified and then successfully made that transition into hospital.

Basically I'm rambling and I think what I'm trying to say is there are pros and cons of both, do what feels right for you.

edited to add, try and speak to some people who work in the places you've been offered, that may well make your mind up for you.

amberlouise · Mar 26, 2018

THank you for your response, I really appreciate it! I think I have decided to go with the community hospital for a year or so and then transition to the community. Like yourself I am 99% sure community is the carer Route I want to take, confirmed by my current placement which is making this decision all that bit harder. However, confidence is something I quite often lack in therefore support is going to be really important in this first job, and having worked in the hospital before I know I'll most likely get it, where as with the community team I've not worked there before so can't be sure of how supported I would be, and like you say with the nature of communuty work it is likely I would be on my own rather quickly. I have spoken to lots of people, mainly who are in the community just due to where I am on placement at the moment and although they all love their jobs there's mixed reviews on whether to get hospital experience first or not.