A senior nurse who quit the health service after suffering crippling burnout now earns the same salary in an entry-level tech job.
Sean Cherry, 31, spent nine years in Royal London Hospital rising to the role of a Band 7 nurse at the tech in Whitechapel – but pressures on the health service led to him packing it in after the pandemic. Sean earned take-home pay of £2,500 in his high-ranking health service role – but now earns the same in a junior consultancy position.
NHS wages in England scale from Band 1 to Band 9. The Mirror reports that Sean ultimately quit in September last year after being signed off with stress for 10 weeks.
Sean said: "Nursing is never about money, you go into it because you want to help people. But it staggers me that my pay after bouncing around the NHS for nearly a decade is more or less the same as this very junior job."
During the coronavirus pandemic, Sean led a paediatric nursing team, and hoped that the pressures and stress applied to the country's medics would subside as the worst of the virus passed. However, it never did, with the health service now playing catch-up and dealing with health problems exacerbated by years of lockdown.
He added: "I saw burnout and stress all around me, colleagues in tears on a daily basis. I had been ground down to the point where I lacked any resilience.
"The week I went back from burnout was the same week as my wedding. It was meant to be the happiest time of my life yet I was crippled with indecision.
"I just came to realise I couldn't be a nurse any more."
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