So also sometimes you may not have enough notice to be able to find a job because we actually have as Band 7’s we have eight weeks’ notice so in theory they could, you know, it doesn’t happen in practice in any decent workplace but in theory they could, you know, decide not to renew at a very short, with a very short notice.

And then, you know, it’s unlikely that you will find a job in eight weeks because obviously if you start applying for a job there’s a process that you have to go through and the job application would be open for a month and then you have to wait for the shortlisting period and then you have to wait for the interviews and then if you’re lucky enough to get the job you have to go through HR [Human Resources] which is tedious, quite a tedious process and it takes a while for HR then to go through vaccinations with you and, you know, all the checks that they need to do and then you eventually get a job. But it might mean that for a couple of months you might be unemployed and that’s something that for some midwives, some people in general it’s just not something that you may want to contemplate, you know, if you have a mortgage like I said and children you just need a regular income.

Cos that’s one of the things that sort of worried me when I first came into research is that it was only a one-year contract. But on the backside, or on the good side of that was actually that if I went in and I didn’t like it, and I just couldn’t do it, I’ve got a wonderful get-out clause that doesn’t look bad on my CV. I’ve got 14 years of experience that gets me back into the ward, with a little bit of refreshing, so it was an ideal opportunity, it was a bit like a secondment I felt when I was going in, that I’ll go in, I’ll give it twelve months, yeah, and then I will make a decision. I actually love it, so it’s, it was very beneficial for me to get a permanent contract, but it didn’t really worry me that much, as much as I know it has worried other colleagues about not having a permanent contract. Everybody has a mortgage to pay and the bills, so things like that. But I always knew that I would be able to get a job if this didn’t work. I could go back to where I was I can travel, not ideally but I know as a nurse I have enough knowledge and experience to be able to go back into nursing.

So, this was like a secondment for me, and it would be an ideal way to see, put my foot in the water, and say actually, You know I’m glad I give it a go, but it’s really not for me. And research is not for everybody, it really isn’t. But fortunately for me, it is. It’s one of the best decisions or progressive decisions that I’ve made, it was the right time to move.

So I was on permanent contract with my Trust that I work at. So when I left to work for the other Trust, I was giving up a permanent position. And I did think about that. But all I thought was ‘as a qualified nurse, I’m going to find work somewhere in the NHS. And I think because my ward had been closed down, I thought ‘well, nothing’s permanent’ [laughs]. It felt a bit mmm, well, you know. I really felt if they could shut that ward that we thought was really important, with highly skilled people, then that could be anywhere. So I thought right. That probably affected my decision actually, when I think about it. If I hadn’t had that experience, I might have hesitated more.

And I met- when I was brand new, I met two cardiology research nurses, not from where I worked, who were working in another speciality. And I said, Oh, why? and they said their funding ran out for cardiology. Then next time I saw them, they said they got the funding back [laugh] and they’d gone back to cardiology. But anyway, that made me think ‘oh, there’s probably jobs going somewhere, you know, in research. Or, as I said, as a qualified nurse.

Yeah well I was, there was, you know, issues of concern around that but I thought well, you know, sometimes when you’ve gotta make a change it’s in all areas of nursing really it’s very difficult for nurses to swap around and not lose their banding which is, which is a problem in the whole of the profession really. Because if you do want to try something new you have to, you’re almost expected to drop a band and you know, and it’s not always, we’ve all got our bills to pay and mortgages haven’t we, so that’s, you know, I was a little bit. But I did it and you know, it all worked out fine.

So oftentimes, the thing about research roles, which I’ve done for the most part is that they’re on fixed term contracts, so a certain amount of money comes out and you’re employed either part-time or full-time for X amount of months. And so there have been times when I’ve worked on a speech therapy bank and a speech therapy service as well, and so I’d be doing two or three days a week in clinical practice with children with speech and language therapy needs, and then two days a week on a research on a research role.

And it’s, yeah it was very hard, it was, it was difficult juggling the demands of that I think they’re slightly different mind sets, and I think regardless of whether it was two different roles I think having two different work places to, to juggle can, well it is, it’s a challenging thing cause everyone has their own set of rules and policies and familiarity and dynamic and systems that you need to be familiar with to just do the day-day things. And in the role, in the clinical role that I was doing I was a speech therapist visiting a number of schools, and so I, then within that role further I would need to develop relationships with each individual school and things. So, there was, there was quite a lot of settings and situations to get comfortable with and understand.

The only barrier I had initially was- because I took the job, I took the job- it was a part-time position. So what I wanted to do was carry on working part-time as well for the hospital. But it was the hospital that has this barrier, that they have a minimum requirement of- what was it? I had to work two shifts a week. Whereas-, 24 hours a week, minimum requirement. Which, with the research, would have taken me to over full-time. So I had to quit that. Like so I had to quit that job and then go on the bank, and just work-. Which, so that was a barrier. Which seemed crazy because they’re desperate for midwives. And yet they make- they had an experienced midwife who could have worked one day a week. You know, 12 hour day. And now, yeah, but now it’s actually resulted in me just going to research full-time, and just doing the odd bank shift here or there, so. It wasn’t a barrier from the research side, it was a barrier from the clinical side.

And that initially that was a three year contract. So that felt like reasonable security. I think my children were maybe getting a little bit older. My husband had quite a good job at the moment. His, his work history has been on again off again and a bit erratic, a little bit research based himself. So it, it was quite a big deal for me to upset the apple cart and have somebody not on an absolutely steady income. But I felt it was worth it. And worth it for the lifestyle change and worth, worth it for the degree of self, of control that I was actually getting over my job.

No, well, I didn’t have shift work any more. That was the first one. Because they’re a lot of rewards to do with a, a nursing career and looking after people but the giving up of a lot of free time, weekend time, evening time, family time, you know, I wasn’t there a lot for my own kids. And as a midwife, it was kind of interesting to me that we were all about helping women adjust to focusing their being [laughs] their lives and everything they did on this new member of their family and in order to do that, I had to just kind of ignore my own, at home. And sometimes that balance seemed a bit unfair and, yeah, not right.

So partly, it was largely that because I did actually take a financial hit by going to a, you know, a full time contract but without the out of hours. I, what I ended up doing is picking up a little bit of part time work.

Yeah so well because previous to this I was working on evenings in district nursing, so I was doing six till, six till midnight, but only two evenings a week. So, I did one day, cos I was managing that team, I did two evenings but then I also did one day, I sort of had an admin day during the day. So yeah, it was, it was quite a change. So, then I went from that to, and then when I first started on the research I did, I only did 18 hours, so I managed to fit that, more or less, around school hours. But then of course, because I’d always worked evenings, I’d never had to worry about school holidays before for my children because they, you know, I’d always been working in the evenings. So of course, then I was working in the day, then I had that sort of in the holidays to manage. But I mean now my children are old enough I don’t have to worry about things, you know, they’re still at home but they’re older so [laughs] so I don’t have to worry. But yeah, but in some ways it’s nice working, one of the things that was particularly nice was when I worked evenings, you know, we still had to cover all the sort of bank holidays and Christmas, and all that sort of thing. And I have to say it was very nice when I, and I still appreciate it every Christmas when I don’t have to work Christmas in this job [laughs]. And I have to say that is a big treat to know that I can have Christmas off every year with my children.

It was lovely for about four months but now you have two days to do everything. So, you have to do all your cleaning, all your washing, all your shopping on a Saturday. On a Sunday you’re getting ready to come back to work on a Monday. So, I do miss, I never thought I would say it, miss working shifts. I don’t miss nights at all, they can be gone. But I do miss 2 o’clock finish where I could go home, chill out, cup of tea, feet up, watch a little bit of crummy television. Have a bit of a nap, where now, and it’s very, very tiring, it is, I’m like most nights I am in bed by ten, cos I’m up at six. I only live well I live about, it’s about 25 miles away, so it’s about 25, 30 minutes away. And it’s not a bad commute, but parking is a nightmare, you don’t get parking privileges because you work nine till five, so that’s very, very difficult. I don’t have a, a very good bus route that would get me in for the times that I need to do cos I live in a, in a little country village now, so there was all that to look at, so what I do now is I arrive at work about quarter to eight every day regardless of whether I start at eight or nine.

And I find that, I can go and have a coffee, just chill out, have a hello to whoever’s around, and then from nine o’clock I’m ready for my day. When I first started I was looking 40 minutes for parking, you were stressed out before you’d even started work and it’s not a good way to be going in. It was new, it was all fresh and it was a little bit scary, but I was very, very anxious. So, parking is a very, something to be aware of. I think that’s in any hospital that I’ve worked in, parking has always been difficult.

Shift patterns, I have core hours so I, for my team so anywhere between 8 in the morning and 6 o’clock in the evening and I think we’re very, very fortunate in the fact that our hours are quite flexible. And I think it’s quite a tough world out there on the wards and in other departments and we are, we are quite fortunate with regards to hours and the level of flexibility but on the back of that then if staff need to stay late there is an expectation that they would, you know, if they can they will stay late because, you know, what we’re finding because clinics are so busy at the moment you’ve got lots of waiting list initiative clinics so some of the clinics start at 8 in the morning so we’ve gotta cover those clinics, some clinics go on until 7, 8 at night, we have weekend clinics so where possible if we’re available, we’ll-, none of us are, our contracts are all Monday to Friday but if we have to come in at weekends and people can cover it then they will and then they just, we don’t have the money to pay for them but what we do is give them time and half back. So yeah, it and I’ve sort of started to warn the staff that things will change, that we will, that, you know, when we develop as a team further and have more funding then because in many ways a lot of patients are missing out, you know, if they’re coming in after 6 o’clock they’re not, might not be offered those emergency studies that may benefit them.

Which is a shame.

Well, one appeal was the flexible working that it offers. You know, I’m really fortunate, I have a great boss who is quite flexible. As long as we’re working approximately between nine and four, we can come in a bit earlier, stay a bit later. We don’t have to work evenings, nights, weekends, if we don’t want to. It’s not part of our job description to do that. Which is nice. Having a young family, it’s nice to then have, have that time to be involved with what they’re doing outside of work. Whereas shift work, you know, you miss lots of things.

And research was quite new to our Trust at that time as well, so it was- It was appealing to be involved in something new, that looked as though it was going, it was going somewhere, and it was going to make a difference.

I mean I really like the combination, I like for a personal point of view I like the variety it gives me. I really, I mean I worked full time, I was a health visitor first then I moved into research, and was in research full time, and then I went back into practice about six years ago, because I’d really personally missed the clinical element. I like the face to face work, working with clients, women and babies mainly. So it was very much, and I also realised I was getting to a point, I’d been out of health visiting for ten years, so it was now or never. If I was going to go back I had to do it now otherwise I wouldn’t have had the confidence, and I’d also have lost my registration I think. So, I also thought that, you know, professionally it probably would enhance both roles, research role would benefit from me being a clinician, and the clinical role would benefit from my research knowledge. Yes, I think, I mean it, that is the case, I think the research benefit’s more than the clinical practice. The research benefit’s because I understand the world of clinicians, so I know how to encourage them to participate into research, I know what they’re kind of requirements are, I know what the constraints are. As a clinician it’s very useful for me individually to be able to access research very quickly, I know exactly where to go, what’s available, how to find it.