I moved from Canada to be a nurse in the UK – but now I want to quit

“I don’t think you’re going to like it,” said my manager, turning from her computer. She’d just marked my last day of work in her calendar. I’d finally found the courage to announce I was leaving to move to London.

She wasn’t being mean-spirited or spiteful. She was thinking back on the experience of a friend who had moved to the UK to work as a nurse and how disappointing it had been.

And she couldn’t have been more right. It’s been a year since I touched down in London, and not a single week has gone by where I haven’t daydreamed about finding a new career.

I enjoy nursing and it suits me well. But I can’t help but feel undervalued as a nurse in the UK. The basics are the same: nurses look after sick people. So why does it feel so different this side of the Atlantic? It comes down to responsibility, autonomy and respect.

For starters, in the UK nurses tend to leave most decision-making up to doctors. ECG? Show it to the doctor. Blood results? Let the doctor review them. Can’t find a vein? The doctor will insert the IV cannula. In Canada, nurses look at ECGs to determine whether patients should be treated immediately for heart attack or if it’s fine for them to sit in the waiting room. It’s up to the nurse to get something done if a patient’s electrolytes are out of whack. Putting a needle in a vein? That’s a nursing skill – and they’re the best at it.

Back home I was often told that if a patient’s blood levels were fine, I could go ahead and discharge them from hospital. Here, not many nurses bother looking at blood results. No one expects them to.

In Canada, mentors taught me about how symptoms and anatomy related to diagnoses. I was required to fully assess every patient from head to toe by looking, touching, and listening. In the UK, I most often receive feedback about recording blood pressure on time and making sure patients sign the personal property waiver. Here, a nursing assessment can be done without even touching the patient. Nurses document who patients live with, what mobility device they use, and what their risk for pressure sores is. The nurses I work with here know their stuff . But from what I’ve seen, the NHS is geared towards nurses doing tasks, not applying judgement or critical thinking.

Nurses have an important job; they can make or break a patient’s healthcare experience. To be a nurse requires a university degree and membership in a professional body. Nurses give their all for people who are at their worst. It’s a physically and emotionally draining job on the best of days. Yet most NHS nurses I know do extra shifts on top of their full-time hours to make ends meet.

The nursing salaries here are embarrassingly low. After converting from Canadian dollars, I earn £15,000 less per year here than I did back home. Canada’s healthcare system is publicly-funded just like the NHS, but somehow nurses there are paid well.

In nursing school, one of the first courses I took was about the status and history of the profession, from Nightingale to the present. One day the topic of salary came up. The students knew how well Canadian nurses are compensated, but I recall the energy with which my classmates cheered when our professor exclaimed: “And we’re worth every penny!”

But perhaps the most difficult aspect for me has been public perception of nurses in the UK. Back home when you say you’re a nurse, you say it proudly and people’s eyes light up. “My aunt is a nurse, what type of nurse are you?” they ask with interest. Here In the UK, I find people are less enthusiastic. “A nurse? Oh,” they say, and move on to a different subject.

A Canadian friend landed at Heathrow and handed her visa over to the immigration officer.

“What do you do for work?” he asked.

“I’m a nurse,” she said, beaming. “Why?” he said flatly, as the smile fell from her face.

It was a quick introduction to nursing in the UK.

If you would like to write a blogpost for Views from the NHS frontline, read our guidelines and get in touch by emailing sarah.johnson@theguardian.com.

Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.

I moved from Canada to be a nurse in the UK – but now I want to quit