Hello

Yesterday I sent a press release announcing a recruitment fair being held at Hellesdon Hospital on Thursday (July 16) between 10am and 7pm. I thought the below outline of the role of a mental health nurse may be of interest to you. Of course, a mental health nurse is just one of the roles the trust is recruiting, there are many other positions.

If you would like to interview a mental health nurse or any other mental health roles please let me know.

Kind regards
Louisa Griffith-Jones
PR and Communications Manager
Tel: 01603 421158

Mental Health Nursing
No Ordinary Career, No Ordinary Rewards

Mental health nursing is one of the most complex and demanding areas of nursing, and is, consequently, one of the most rewarding. As many as one in three people are thought to suffer some form of mental health problem.

What kind of person do I need to be?
Good mental health nurses are intelligent, flexible, caring and down-to-earth. You should enjoy meeting people from all walks of life and of all ages and backgrounds. You must be genuinely interested in what makes people tick. It helps if you are a good listener, imaginative and good at unravelling and solving practical problems . Just as all kinds of people can suffer from mental health problems, so there is room for all kinds of people in mental health nursing.

An open mind
You need to be able to relate to all kinds of people from all kinds of social backgrounds and cultures without judging them or trying to impose your personal ethics on them.

Confidence in your judgements
You need the confidence to make many of your own decisions about planning and delivering care. At the same time, you need the team skills to work with people from many other disciplines – social workers, the police, charities, local government officials and other health professionals, to organise care for your patients.

Communication skills
It’s a job that’s all about interacting with people – so sensitive human interaction is the most important skill for any mental health nurse. You’ll need to be able to talk – and more importantly listen – to all kinds of people with real patience and understanding, often involving friends and family. To co-ordinate patients’ care in the community, you’ll need to be able to communicate well not only with your patients, but also with people from the other agencies and services involved.

Sensitivity
As a mental health nurse you need to be very alert to your patients’ moods. You need to be able to spot when someone may be at risk of harming themselves or others – you’ll learn to spot the build-up of tension and ways of defusing it.

Unfortunately, there is still some stigma attached to mental illness. Combating this and helping the individuals and their families deal with it is a key part of the job.

What could I specialise in?
There’s a surprisingly broad range of areas within mental health nursing.

• As a member of a GP’s practice
• Visiting people in their own homes
• Staffing a psychiatric intensive care unit
• With adolescents and children
• Helping people with drug and alcohol problems in a specialist clinic
• With older people either in hospital or in their own homes
• As a member of the Emergency team in a large hospital
• Focusing on a particular need, e.g. eating disorders or self-harm
• As member of a crisis team
• working in forensic psychiatry with people who have committed crimes
• Services geared to ethnic groups such as the Asian, Chinese and other ethnic minorities in the
community.
• Education

For many, mental health problems are brought on by a crisis in life, which they can’t cope with, such as depression after the death of a partner. The range of conditions is vast: neuroses, psychoses, psychological and personality disorders all come under the broad heading of mental health.

You often work with people in initial crisis where the main emphasis is on learning to cope effectively, teaching things like stress and anxiety management.

Why choose mental health nursing?
Mental health nursing is rarely easy. But then, for the people who do it, that’s one of the best things about it. The challenges are big, but so are the rewards and the satisfaction.

What’s a typical day like?
That’s one of the great things about nursing. There really is no typical day, because there are so many areas to work in and so many different patients to work with.

Mental health nurses really can make a difference to people’s lives

A mental health nurse relates with care and compassion to people who are distressed or disturbed. The work involves assessing people’s mental health needs, their backgrounds and histories and, together with the patient, planning and carrying out the care the patient needs. Mental health nurses use a wide variety of skills, therapies (e.g. talking therapy, group therapy, art therapy) and resources to help and support people in their daily lives. Helping people resolve their own problems is a fundamental part of mental health nursing. The types of problem people suffer from vary enormously.

How do I become a mental health nurse?
To qualify as a mental health nurse, you need to complete a three-year university course. Most courses are equally split between theory and practice. Your practical work experience with patients could be in many of the areas listed above, always supervised by a qualified mental heath nurse.