As a general practitioner you need several licenses and registrations to operate  (plus a certain degree of intelligence) which makes it hard to believe that any GP wouldn’t be aware of this requirement for nurses.  Most importantly, having worked in recruitment for some years I’m amazed that any surgery could start a nurse at work without the pre-employment checks being completed, checked and logged accordingly.  The systems now in place for these checks, especially in the NHS, are almost impossible to overlook and as the report states, you can search a nurses NMC registration for free in just seconds.

Begs the question…  How common has this practice been for GP’s for the warning to require issuing?  And what’s the underlying reason for the cause?

I would guess at lack of budgets for acquiring properly vetted and able nurses for work, or simply a lack of nurses where needed!

Obviously it could just be many, many mistakes of course…

Call me cynical but the opportunity for people to find work in the care sector is ever present in all areas of the UK and has been for some time, with many employers happy to offer free training and development opportunities to those who show commitment and willing.  It’s not like creating more jobs will suddenly solve the issue!  So what’s new…?

When I started to read Carers UK Future Care paper on “Growing the Care Market” I admittedly did so with a ‘tell me something I don’t know’ attitude towards the ever present array of statistics and information outlining our ever growing population, the rise in people requiring care, and the lack of people to care for them etc etc.

But then I kept reading and was pleasantly surprised to find the paper a highly considered and forward thinking vision of a future for the UK care market.  Granted, more research into ‘the sector’s value added contribution to the UK economy’ is needed and probably many of the incentives mentioned to aid future business growth coming to fruition, but for the first time in a long time, I felt truly inspired.

From the global perspective offered and capturing of recognised issues within the sector, to the constructive opportunities considered which could genuinely make a difference, the paper certainly offers a ‘solution.’

Let’s hope it doesn’t fall of deaf ears…

I won’t say much more on the subject, other than you need to read the paper for yourselves, but finish with a few snippets which I know many will nod their heads in agreement to;

Imagine, instead of the current situation in which certain care roles are seen as low skilled and low value – the average rate of pay for a careworker in England is £6.80 an hour – a workforce recognised for the contribution it makes to the maintenance of robust family, community and working life…    

… Imagine, instead of struggling to recruit into poorly paid and undervalued jobs, care businesses creating jobs that people want to do and careers they want to stay in.

There are plenty of people that might be trained in the same way that you are, but it can be almost impossible for employers to find the people that have genuine cause among the many applications they receive.   Most care workers look to have the exact same experiences with maybe NVQs at different levels.

The way to get yourself forwards is by having a good CV.  Not that it has to be a work of art or autobiography.  Just try to appreciate that a manager is looking for specific information and help them to find it easily.  Although many would say that cover letters are great, we would personally recommend not using cover letters and writing a short paragraph at the top of your CV as this is more likely to be read and an employer will generally look at your CV before a cover letter, and this is where you want to get noticed.

Use the space to say something positive about the care jobs you are applying for and why you feel you are well suited.  Equally, if you have no experience but a desire, this is where you need to say.   Lay out your CV with your most recent employment at the top and keep it simple.  Nobody has time to read a huge amount of text to find the little bits of info needed and essentially all they seek are snippets of information to get a feel for you.

You can find out more about writing CVs in a future post to be released soon.

Nursing as a field of expertise has many different types of nurse jobs available that range from hospital work and clinical care to care home jobs for residential patients with varying needs. Not forgetting the community home care nurses, midwives, school nurses and just so many others we would be lost without.

So if you did decide to get into nursing, where would you start and what would you expect? Working in the care jobs industry we’d like to offer some general information about some of the key nursing positions available.

RGN (Registered General Nurse) – Registered nurses or Staff nurses as they can be known, are the most common type of nurse and makes up the largest bulk of nursing professions. They are the typical nurses you see in hospitals and any care centre offering nursing care. An RGN develops excellent clinical skills and a fantastic general knowledge. This ranges from distributing medicines, monitoring patients, changing bandages and also providing emotional support to patients and families. RGN’s will often go on to specialise in other fields and develop their skills, but will ultimately start here.

RMN (Registered Mental Nurse – RMN’s or mental health nurses are trainined to provide care to those with mental health issues in a variety of settings from hospitals to prison units. An RMNs job is to help people regain or develop the personal skills need to become independent. Work is often very challenging but rewarding.

Practice Nurse – A practice nurse is often RGN trained with additional qualifications. These are the nurses you find in clinics or doctors surgeries and will be responsible for monitoring sick patients back to health and providing immunisations etc.

Community Nurse – Nurses working to support the needs of a community. This means that they have the same responsibilities as a typical registered nurse, but deliver nursing care to schools, community centers and patient homes. This is particularly important to people with limited mobility. Working under their own judgement there is a great level of responsibility on decisions made.

Midwife – Midwives are highly trained registered nurses who work with pregnant women during and beyond pregnancy. Often at the delivery also. Midwife jobs are highly sought and carry a great level of responsibility due to the nature of the work with children and emotional ties with parents etc. Most midwive love their work and find their role highly rewarding.

The above gives just a small example of some of the nurse jobs available and demonstrates the variety in work. Nurse training incorporates most aspects of these roles and by the time you are qualified, ready to enter your first post, you will probably have a preference as to which field you wish to specialise. The good thing about becoming a nurse is that there are certainly many opportunities for you once the door is opened and throughout your career. You can even retrain, or continue to develop into nurse practitioner jobs and beyond. As with all care jobs, a good nurse holds exceptional value and will quickly find career progression comes with hard work. Just be prepared for long hours and complete dedication. The rest may even come naturally!

Care assistants are rewarded with competitive pay, flexible working hours to suit your life style and fantastic opportunities to develop a career.

How do you qualify? The truth is, anybody can become a carer.  You simply need to express your desire towards the job and there are hundreds of companies who will happily offer full training and support.  Especially in the home care or domiciliary sector.

Previous experience, or gaining 6 months+ can see rises in salary and the chance to complete NVQs at varying degrees.  Maybe even push for a senior care role if you have proven yourself committed.

Many who decide on careers in care work and ask how they can become a care assistant have personal experience in looking after relatives or loved ones, which sparks a desire to go pro and help others.  There are also a lot of people who try their hand at volunteer jobs to get a feel for the industry before taking up full time roles.

Clients would consist of a range of elderly people, physically weak/disabled, those with a learning disability/ special need, or could simply be somebody who would prefer help in making life better for them. Work might be assisting with meals, dispensing medication, cooking, shopping and personal care, but most importantly, your valuable kind companionship.

Most of the companies who offer training for care assistant jobs will say so in their adverts, but it is always worth asking.  Especially if you have good cause and a genuine desire.

Of course, some of the highest paid medical jobs are still those that involve having an M.D. or R.N. designation at the end of your name, but other medical careers offer high pay and the prestige that a medical job offers as well. There are many career institutes that exist solely for training those who are interested in assisting medical doctors or GP Jobs holders. A very popular program is that of a medical assistant or healthcare assistant. A medical assistant or HCA typically works in a doctors office or other clinical / nursing setting. A medical assistant or HCA will interview and take all of the pertinent medical facts from the patient prior to the doctor doing the exam. In many instances, medical assistants are also qualified via their training to administer various shots, such as vaccines and the flu shot, on the doctors behalf as well.

One can also receive training for other medical jobs that do not involve as much patient contact. Medical office administration is one such function that is crucial to the running of a medical office yet which also involves minimal patient interaction. All one needs to have is an aptitude for handling the paperwork that is involved in the day to day operation of the medical office to excel at this medical job.

Other popular administrative medical jobs involve medical billing and coding and medical transcription. Billing and coding involves knowing how to select the proper treatment codes for various medical procedures so that the office can properly bill and be reimbursed by the patient’s insurance company. Medical transcription involves learning how to listen to a medical practitioner’s dictation of the medical exam so that the dictation can be transcribed into written form for the patient’s chart. There are many online options for learning how to perform any one of these important medical jobs.

Another option for a career in the medical field is in a dental office. Dental hygienists will often clean and x ray a patient’s mouth prior to the patient being seen by the actual dentist. Many of the same institutes and online learning centres also offer program and degree options in the dental arena as well.

All in all, medical jobs and Nursing Jobs are a great career choice for those either starting out or looking for a change in their careers. Most medical jobs are relatively easy to train for and many training programs offer financial assistance as well. Most importantly, in today’s often unstable economic climate, a career in the medical jobs field can offer both stability and job satisfaction which are two of the most important components of any career choice.

GP jobs are Medical Jobs in nature and require a great deal of medical and specialised training to become more than just health care professionals. They are the first line of defence for a family member who is dealing with an illness and have the responsibility to diagnose illnesses correctly and refer patients to specialists accordingly. GPs have a responsibility to know their patients best and put them at ease to feel comfortable talking about personal problems by listening to their concerns and fears.

Most GP jobs today involve a lot more than just the practice of medicine. Holistic medicine is part and parcel of what the general practitioner does. The GP will likely be the first person that you see if you feel something is wrong. They will attend to any and every aspect of your care. Be it mental health, physical health, emotional health, or family dynamics, the GP will be there to help to guide you through any medical issues that you may have.

GP Jobs require a high level of expertise. Although they are not specialists in any area of the body, they know general medicine and are trained every bit as stringently as any other physician. Also called a family practitioner, they are well aware that the state of your mental health can affect your physical health. GP jobs involve working in many different areas of health and treating a wide array of different conditions.

Your medical history can effect every aspect of your present health and any conditions that you may be dealing with. GP’s will take the medical history, evaluate your symptoms and then work to diagnose and to treat whatever medical conditions are affecting you today. The will also seek out a consultant to assist them in treating you if they feel that what you have to work with is something that is beyond their scope of knowledge or their skill in their GP jobs.

What Type Training Do You Need for GP Jobs?

The family physician, or general practitioner has several years in medical schools and have to train for three years in real world, on the job scenarios. They practice in clinics, in physicians offices, or in hospitals. They must take on a broad spectrum of knowledge across many different medical fields and must constantly update their skills through continuing professional development, much as any other physician or health care professional must do. The GP must also re-certify in Basic Life Support, Advanced Life Support, and even CPR on a regular basis, as most other health care professionals do.

Your GP is there for you, not only to treat you when something is wrong, but to help you prevent needing treatment. Unlike hospital Doctor Jobs which evolve around clinical procedures, General Practitioner jobs are as much about preventive medicine as they are about healing illnesses and injuries.

One of the worst things that you can come across when you are looking for jobs are the scams. There are plenty of pyramid scheme type of companies that only want to recruit you for something that is not going to make you anything and take away plenty of your time. Even though you are working in a very skilled and specialized area, you might come across something that seems like it is too good to be true. However, when you are on the niche sites, you will have a better time detecting things like these since you will not be overwhelmed by the amount of other postings that you will have to look through in order to find something that is relevant for you. It’s good just to be smart and make sure that you can verify that facility exists before you send them all of your information to be contacted.

It’s a good idea to make sure that you are getting your qualifications ready to show to everyone while you are applying. It can be difficult to convince someone that you are going to be a great worker without displaying some experience that you have had in the past. Even if you worked in a facility for a short amount of time or just part time, it’s important to let any potential employer know this so they can go ahead and factor that in to their hiring decision on your application.

When thinking health care, most people will instantly think of doctors with their stethoscopes. However, there is much more diversity in the types of Care Jobs and the majority of these begin with Care Assistant Jobs, which is where you find most nurses and managers begin to understand the industry they work in. Here we will see some of the different types of jobs in health care.

It takes a very special type of person to care for someone who cannot otherwise do things for themselves, and to those people you are invaluable. You need to be highly empathetic, have a great deal of patience, and have an attention to detail to treat people who have needs in a way that will not be considered intrusive. People who have these skills are often in the caring professions. Anyone who thinks they have the mentality to undertake this kind of work can choose a number of positions to deliver care at various levels. There are so many care jobs. Some required long term schooling and education. Others are less skilled and will offer training, but are just as important.

Types of Care Jobs:

Government Health Care Jobs – several countries, such as the United Kingdom, have central agencies or trusts responsible for public care jobs. In the UK, you can get a job in the NHS to find a secure job in health care. Even in countries where there are no public medical services there are government agencies that employ physicians and other health professionals. Such an agency is the Department of Health and Human Services of the United States. Another is civil Veterans Administration Health Agency.

Military Care jobs – Practically all medical professions can be found in the military and the work is highly varied dependent on your posting. You have different rules and responsibilities from regular soldiers, however are accountable to the same people. For example, the U.S. military service encourages physicians to continue with the same expertise that serve your commission.

Care Home Jobs – Care home jobs are increasingly becoming one of the biggest areas of care work opportunities in every country. This is due to the ageing population where people live for longer and the rise in the need for centres which care for those with mental health issues. Care Home Jobs offer a great chance to develop into the caring professions and often provide full training, with opportunities to gain qualifications and progress through commitment and hard work.

Other related Care jobs or care careers:

• Nursing – A person working in Nursing Jobs takes care of a patients well-being in various ways, including the preparation of management or care plans, monitoring recovery, ensuring that the patient is informed at each stage of their treatment, the mental well-being of the patient and many accountable responsibilities while under your care.

• Medical assistant – works under the supervision of nurses and doctors. They train in both administrative and clinical work, including the actions such as talking ECG, temperature, pulse, etc.

• Ambulance crew -they are responsible for the security of the patient in transport, either regular or in an emergency, including the provision of first aid and critical care while on the way to hospital from a scene of incident.

• General practitioners – another name for non-specialist doctors or GPs. These are the doctor you find in your every day clinics. GPs diagnose and treat patients where possible, referring any specialised care across to the relevant departments.

• Surgeons – they are among the premier salaried care professionals and require years of training. These are the true life savers and there is great responsibility and pressure for a surgeon each and every day.

• Other Allied care Jobs – are care professionals within specialised fields of expertise. These include radiologists, nutritionists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, massage therapists, clinical psychologists, forensic psychologists, dietitians, podiatrists and many more.

Care professionals can work anywhere in the world and care jobs are always encouraged as a good career choice. As the population grows and demand gets greater, we need all of the Care Worker Jobs seekers we can find. Often these are the most secure and rewarding jobs to people with the right mentality and can develop into many fields.