I have just read The double hit (Vital summer 2012 page 5) and I couldn't agree more. I have been a dental nurse for the same practitioner for the past 12 years. I have noticed in recent years that my role has completely changed. I now have so much more responsibility and my time is taken up recording and box ticking along with all the usual chairside duties and HTM 01-05. I love my job but am feeling the pressure to comply with the mountain of regulations and in a single handed practice that falls to me alone; I have nobody to delegate tasks to in order to ease the burden. I find it stressful and it is slowly killing my love for the job. I am not employed by the NHS but a private individual so do not benefit from the set pay scales. I have not had a pay rise for two years and am finding it harder and harder to make ends meet. As a DCP I get paid the same as an entry level NHS nurse. I have the radiography qualification and am doing a foundation degree in dental nursing at a local university. Despite this I still haven't had a pay rise even with the additional burdens in the workplace. Sadly I have decided that once I get my degree I will move away from nursing; I'm tired of having to be responsible for so much without the salary to reflect what I do. I will stay in dentistry as it's something I love but I feel nursing has become so bureaucratic that it's impossible to give the patients the time and service they deserve.
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Kirsty Mountain of regulation. Vital 9, 4 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/vital1538
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/vital1538