Why I Left The NHS

I served the NHS for over twenty years. I will always be proud of that. I will always be grateful to the colleagues I worked alongside, many of whom are still giving everything they have to a service I deeply believe in.

I am still an advocate for the NHS. I believe in it. I want it to thrive.

Yet by 2016, after returning from maternity leave with my first daughter, I could no longer ignore what I had been quietly seeing for years.

The Health Visiting service I had trained in, and fallen in love with, was no longer being delivered the way families needed it to be. It was being delivered the way commissioners required it to be.

We were measured against targets that often had little to do with what parents actually needed. We faced financial penalties if we missed a tick-box deadline, even when the family in front of us would have been better served by a different visit, on a different day, in a different way.

Parents I knew would benefit most from ongoing reassurance, relationship, and the simple reassurance of knowing who to contact couldn’t have that, because they didn’t have a “presenting issue.”

Meanwhile, I spent hours knocking on doors of families who didn’t want me there, because the system required it.

After my own maternity leave, when I had the time and space to reflect on what I had been seeing, I knew I couldn’t keep delivering a service shaped by metrics rather than by need.

So I stepped outside the structure, while continuing to support the NHS through bank work in Health Visiting, A&E, the Test and Trace programme, and out-of-hours GP services right through to 2022.

Today, I do the work I always wanted to do.

The original Health Visiting work.

Building real relationships with families. Offering ongoing support, not a single visit. Being someone parents know they can come back to, without needing a “reason.”

This isn’t a story of leaving the NHS behind.

It’s a story of finding a way to keep doing the work that mattered to me most, in the way families actually need it to be done.

The NHS will always be there for the families who need its specialist resources and safety net.

My work simply means the parents who need regular reassurance, support around specific issues, and a relationship they can rely on don’t have to wait, don’t have to wonder who to call, and don’t add to a system that’s already stretched.

That, to me, is still part of supporting the NHS.

Just from the outside.

Rebecca

Health Visitor & Parenting Coach

Kinder Coaching