Mental Health Nurse Job Description

A Mental Health Nurse Degree

Mental health nurses are a crucial part of Britain's healthcare system. The role can be tiring and exhausting but offers huge rewards as nurses work to improve the lives of their patients on a daily basis. Every posting has different demands for a mental health nurse.

A mental health nurse needs to be versatile and compassionate to cope with the demands of their role. Mental health nurses will have to work long hours and travel between locations to help their patients. Nurse's character and personality are tested frequently in mental health postings.

The skills required of a mental health nurse are different from those of a general registered nurse. Mental health nurses must hold a degree in nursing to work in the field. The mental health nursing degree is available at higher education institutions across the country and is designed to prepare students for the demands of the role.

The entry to courses involves a written application and an interview, but applicants may be able to get volunteer work in local hospitals if they prepare a personal statement. The experience of students in mental health nursing degrees is ensured. Mental health nurses can choose to follow a number of different career paths once they are qualified.

Community Nurses: Experience and Prospect for Career Opportunities

A nurse who works in the community may work in a more autonomously way than a nurse who works in the hospital, and that could be a career choice for many. You will spend a set amount of time with individuals for a set period of time, usually around 12 weeks. If a person requires more than a short-term support, you can refer them to Secondary Mental Health Services.

You will support the people you support by building relationships with them, knowing what to look for in a relapse, and supporting them to engage in meaningful activities. There are many specialist community teams in the UK, including memory clinics for those with dementia, assertive outreach services for difficult to engage patients, early intervention in psychosis services, crisis teams, mental health for the homeless, community forensic teams, police street triage and many more. The Five Year Forward View published in 2016 places a lot of emphasis on preventative and early intervention for mental health issues.

With a reduction in hospital beds, mental health units now admit people who are in acute stages of serious mental illness, with a high percentage being locked up legally under the Mental Health Act 1983. The experience of practice placements is valuable and will help you to build an idea of the career you want to go into. You can return to university to study for a Masters or PhD if you choose to become a Mental Health Nurse.

As you progress through your career, you may want to train as an Advanced Nurse Practitioner to work autonomously to assess, diagnose and treat mental health illness. You will get paid over 30,000 dollars in the first year if you move to Band 6. A nurse will make over 37,890 after 8 years after earning over 33,000 after two years.

A career in mental health nursing

There are many reasons to consider a career as a mental health nurse. It offers you the chance to make a difference, a high degree of flexibility and a career with good employment prospects. Your role is to build good relationships with people who use mental health services and their family and friends.

You could help one person take their medication correctly while helping another. You can usually work in a community health centre or in someone's home if you're based in a hospital. If you work in a residential setting, you can provide care at night.

There are many opportunities once you have qualified as a mental health nurse. You could work with children and adolescents, as a primary mental health worker, or in a field such as transcultural psychiatry, looking at how mental disorders and their treatment can be influenced by cultural and ethnic factors. You may want to work in management, teaching or clinical research.

Community Mental Health Nurses

The community mental health nurse is a professional who works in collaboration with an interdisciplinary clinical team to provide specialized support to families and clients who are experiencing mental health challenges, some of which can include anxiety, depression, personality, and eating disorders, addiction to drugs or alcohol, and host of other They practice in a range of settings, including residential and nursing homes, community mental health centers, and detoxification centers, rehabilitation units, special units within prisons, and mental health charities. The job description of a community mental health nurse requires using nursing skills and knowledge in applying theories and practices of the mental health profession.

They review the individual's medication regimen and complete nursing assessment to ensure that health needs can be adequately addressed in a particular home. They give medical consultation to teachers about issues such as medication management for individual clients, and advice on potential side-effects of different classes of medications, as well as issues of mental illness and addictions. Community mental health nurses need some soft skills to be successful.

Apprenticeships in Mental Health

Some employers offer nursing degree apprenticeships that are more flexible in their path to becoming a nurse. You will be released for part-time study at a university after you finish your degree apprenticeship as a nurse. Training can be done in a range of settings.

You could work in the community at a GP's surgery, a health centre or a patient's home. You could work in prisons or on the phone. You could be based in the outpatients department, the psychiatric wards or the intensive care units.

Some projects are run by the National Health Service in partnership with other agencies. Many posts offer the chance to work in a more specialist role with a group of clients or with someone with a mental health condition. You will need to submit a health and character declaration, reflective discussion, and five pieces of practice feedback, as well as have a professional indemnity arrangement.

Find out more at NMC Revalidation. There are many routes you can take to progress your career as a mental health nurse. You could become a specialist nurse if you want to work with offenders, children, or young people, forensic psychology, or psychotherapeutic interventions.

Transparent Practice and the Needs for Patient Care

It is important to know that the above examples of practice can be difficult to carry through, and may have a negative effect on nurse–service user relationships. It can be difficult to judge an appropriate level of transparency when taking into account the immediate needs of a service user and the consequences of accessing or denying those needs. It is not always possible to achieve transparency.

Students who are near the end of their nursing course think they don't know enough to work effectively. It can only be a gradual process to become deeply knowledgeable. Clinical experiences can help deepen knowledge in a specific area.

The Role of Compassion in Mental Health Nurses

There is more that needs to be done for nurse patients who experience mental illness and are often confused. It is time to think about the attributes of a good RMN. Beingjudgemental is not good for a mental health environment because patients need to be able to trust that you will do your best for them, regardless.

Sometimes mental health nurses are the only person who can listen to and take care of a patient, which is why compassion is important. It is always at the forefront of what nurses do. A nurse must be able to make the patient and families feel valued and cared for, and feel safe in the knowledge and skills they have.

A good mental health nurse must be committed to lifelong learning and stay up to date with all relevant practice. If you can keep your head when you are losing. Kipling comes to mind.

The number of Mental Health Nurses in the UK decreased by 6000 between 2009 and 2019. Increased patient demand is colliding with decreased funding in the rest of the health service. Some people in the UK suffer from a mental health problem, and some of the stigmattached to that is starting to diminish.

The Government is going to create 21,000 new Mental Health Nurse jobs by the year 2021, and thousands of them are going to be started by the year 2020. Mental health patients with the same diagnosis will need a completely different approach to treatment than patients with physical issues. Mental Health Nurses are problem solvers, but they are very complex.

Making a difference in mental health is a great way to make a difference. You will get to know patients in a way that a General Nurse can not. Your job requires you to go deeper, build trust, and establish long-term relationships.

There are many positives. It is very difficult to get bored as a Mental Health Nurse. You can work in a variety of settings, with prisons and psychiatric wards eager for your skills.

It is an excellent place to build a more specialized career as a counsellor therapist. Mental Health Nurses feel that the pressures of the job are not understood or accounted for, and that they are not remunerated. The impact is unimaginable and with resources over-allocated, not enough is being done to support and protect them.

There are over 60 universities in the UK that offer degrees in mental health nursing. The academic requirements to gain entry are a minimum of five grade point averages between A-level and C, including English, maths and science, plus at least two A-levels or equivalent level 3 qualifications. Mental health nurses look after people with mental health conditions, and sometimes they don't listen or understand what you are saying.

Staying calm and being able to think an alternative way are qualities you need. You will need to have good communication and observational skills as well as emphatic nature to be successful. Mental health nurses can earn a good salary if they work shifts and are required to care for people round the clock.

The salary in most settings depends on a number of factors, including your experience, qualifications, location and whether you work in the public or private healthcare. The pay bands for newly qualified nurses are defined by the Agenda of Change pay structure. The salary for experienced nurses is between £26,041 and £40,964.

The highest-paid position is a nurse consultant. There are apprenticeship opportunities in the mental health nurse field. You can find a wide range of jobs in healthcare by using the app or website.