Catch up

Feeling a little sheepish. No update for 10 months.

To say that 2107 was a difficult year is an understatement. The ward in which I worked was closed down and after a short time on a ward with a similar respiratory speciality I was again moved. This time it was to a renal ward dealing with kidney disease. The staff on this ward were brilliant and hard working, but I felt like a fish out of water. Within a couple of weeks I had decided that it was not for me and the Universe obviously had similar thoughts. I was contacted by a recruitment firm and started the process of moving into the private sector with a company called Capita in the role of a Disability Assessor for PIP.

So after nearly 22 years in the NHS I left, beginning my training for my new role. The training went on for the month of August and while it was great to meet new people the training was intense. Eventually we went off into probation and assessing people for real. It was hard made more so by personal circumstances more of which later. We had 45 minutes to assess people and then write up the reports in the afternoon, this was supposed to take 90 minutes but we had been told that this would be longer at the beginning. As time went by I found that the assessments did indeed become easier, however I found that whenever I got anywhere near the 90 minutes I'd get the reports back. I found myself sitting at the computer from 7am until going out to do the assessments around 8:30am returning at between 1:45pm and 2:40pm, I would then sit at the computer writing reports until after 8pm. The report writing simply wasn't getting any easier, each one was taking over the expected 90 minutes and was usually between 2 and 3 hours. On top of this were the reports that were sent back to be amended which also took an hour or more.

I had to have some time off due to the personal issues mentioned earlier and when I got back I had 26 reports left to get 5 acceptable reports in a row in order to be approved. It was apparent that by following the method taught on training this was not going to happen. I would have probably found this out earlier however, there was a problem that arose just after the group that I was in completed out training. In this the coaches that were usually available to us for advice were taken away to support the quality department. It took time for others to fill this position. Just after 2018 hit us I decided that enough was enough and walked away. I simply did not have any time with my family and this was putting a strain on us.

The above was compounded by my mother being diagnosed with inoperable cancer in early 2017. She was in and out of hospital, initially for chemotherapy but then had several bouts of sepsis which led to her being admitted and being in a very bad state. Eventually she came out but was readmitted to hospital in October and deteriorated and died at the end of October. She was 81. I miss her.

So that is the event of the last 10 or so months. I am now looking for a job, but I am concentrating on my business which you can find at Saving Money Will Make You Smile. If you would have a look I would really appreciate it.

Thank you for reading
Kind regards
St.John