Ready?
Mental Health Nurse — your shift
Sit with it before you solve it — and a change in someone is worth more than a snapshot. Look at who is in front of you, then tap the box they belong in.
Full screen — no distractions
What does a mental health nurse do?
You look after people whose illness is in their thinking — and most of your skill is in a conversation rather than in anything you can hold.
Also called: psychiatric nurse, RMN, mental health practitioner.
A day looks like
- 1Handover, and you listen for what changed overnight rather than what stayed the same.
- 2You spend an hour with one person because that hour is the treatment, not a break from it.
- 3You judge, several times, whether somebody who wants to leave is well enough to be allowed to.
- 4You write everything down, because a risk assessment nobody can find is a risk assessment that does not exist.
Hardest part
Being the person somebody is furious with, and staying warm anyway. You cannot take it personally, and you also cannot pretend it is not happening.
Best part
Seeing somebody two years later in a supermarket, well, slightly embarrassed to see you, and completely fine.
How you actually become a mental health nurse
- At schoolAn interest in people rather than in equipment — this is the least machine-driven job in a hospital.
- TrainingA three-year nursing degree in the mental health field, then registration.
- How longThree years to qualify; the de-escalation and risk judgement take several more.
- Your first jobBand 5 staff nurse on an acute admissions ward.
Frequently asked questions
- Is mental health nursing dangerous?
- There is some risk of aggression, and nurses are trained in de-escalation and safe restraint. But most shifts contain no violence at all, and the training is mostly about how to stop a situation escalating rather than what to do once it has.
- Do mental health nurses just talk to people?
- Talking is the main treatment, and it is a skill rather than a chat. They also give medication, monitor physical health — which is badly neglected in people with severe mental illness — and carry legal responsibilities under mental health law.
- Do you need to have been unwell yourself to do this job?
- No, and plenty of excellent nurses have not been. Some people do come to it through their own experience, and that can help, but what the job actually needs is steadiness and the ability to keep liking somebody who is being horrible to you.
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