Nursing in the Public or Private Sectors
Once you have graduated as a qualified nurse you might have already considered your options for employment, and may have even made a decision as to what you would like to pursue in your career. Alternatively you may not know whether you wish to work within the public or private sector as a nurse, either way there are a few things to take into consideration.
Within the public sector, nursing jobs are mainly within the NHS. The National Health Service is government funded, and seems to have been undergoing constant reorganisation in the recent years. It is continuing to modernise and aiming to become more patient-centred, offering the patient more choices; and the management of chronic illness and disease is improving. The NHS is managed by the Department of Health, Strategic Health Authorities and the Special Health Authorities.
Nurse jobs are available in primary care, secondary care and emergency care, and tertiary care. Primary care services are those offered when someone first suspects they have a health problem, within this sector a nurse could be resident at a GP surgery for example. Secondary and emergency care is that which is given when a patient is referred by a primary care organisation or in an emergency situation. Treatment at this stage is often for acute conditions or is specialist in nature. Finally, tertiary care is that which a patient is referred to from secondary care, and is very specialist, such as cardiac surgery.
The NHS is not the only organisation you can find a nursing job in though, often overlooked are the armed forces. Nurse jobs are available in the Royal Air Force, Royal Navy and the British Army, both in the UK and overseas.
The private sector provides a lot of long-term care in the UK, but does not have as many acute care hospitals as the NHS. However those that exist play a key role in assisting the NHS with any backlogs of waiting lists, particularly for patients needing surgery. Private sector healthcare employers can be divided as follows: for profit, not for profit/charities and voluntary. For profit organisations are usually businesses who run care homes (e.g. for the elderly) or acute care hospitals. Some corporate acute care providers count as not for profit as they reinvest profit into the care system, for instance BUPA.
Your choice of whether to work within the private or public healthcare sector may well end up being decided on the premise of your working principles. Would you want to work within a care industry which makes profit, for example? Or could you work happily with the red tape and system of government which the NHS is run by? Always check the small print and conditions of any job contracts which you are offered, and if unsure, consult with others in the nursing professions. Their opinions and experiences may be very helpful in forming your decisions.
The author works for a website specialised in nursing jobs and nurse jobs in the UK.