Thousands of hardworking medical staff quit the NHS last year - with many highlighting the unmanageable workload and backlog of cases
Staff have been leaving in record numbers with some highlighting the burnout due to the trauma of working on Covid wards.
Meanwhile, others simply felt they were best suited elsewhere - including a community nurse who turned to manifesting instead.
Now one paramedic has told how he became a personal trainer - after realising that he could improve people's health by working outside the healthcare system.
Craig Swinton, who lives in the New Forest, Hampshire, spent 12 years working as a full-time paramedic in the NHS and started his career in Derbyshire.
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He quit his full-time staff job so he could take on part-time bank shifts when it fits around his schedule as a personal trainer.
The dad-of-one started his business Apex Fitness Coaching while working full time - and decided to focus his efforts on it after realising the incredible impact he was having on people's health.
His realisation that he could do more outside the NHS mirrors that of Adam Kay's in This Is Going to Hurt, now a hit TV show chronicling the ex NHS staff members time as a junior doctor.
Speaking to the Mirror, Craig said: "As a paramedic, I'd get to people and they're poorly.
"There's such a small percentage of people they get really poorly and actually take things into their own hands to prevent anything worse.
"The vast majority of people that I'd go to would be heavily reliant on medication and medical procedures.
"In my experience, and if you speak to most doctors, the best medicine is prevention.
"If you are not obese, if you've got a good diet, if you've got a good exercise regime, most illnesses in this country are completely preventable."
He added: "I was going to patients houses and I'd spend most of my time talking about lifestyle choices.
"I was getting frustrated with the paramedic role, and I needed an outlet.
"The more success I had with clients, the more I wanted to push it. I realised I was helping people as a PT far more than I was as a paramedic."
The dad-of-one is keen to stress his love for the NHS, adding: "I do feel for the NHS. The reason I can help people prevent their medical conditions is that they pay me for my time.
"A GP has five minutes - you can't educate someone on nutrition and lifestyle in that time.
"But I'm hugely patriotic about the NHS, I think it's the best thing the UK has done, including Elton John.
"My reasons are very specific to me but 99.9 percent of the NHS is the greatest thing in the world."
Check out Craig's business here or follow him on Instagram, Facebook or TikTok.
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