Which pays better psychiatric nursing or general nursing

Weetbix

For my cao course I want to put psychlatric nursing as second oppsition, because am afaird that I might not get gerenal nursing. Just to make sure do they both pay the same or is there a differents.

Dr Galen

By the time you qualify, about 4 years from you first start it's hard to say what the pay rates will be tbh. It's pretty likely that there will be changes in that period.

Base your first choices on what you really want to do, rather than the points you think you might get. I know the points for general nursing have been shooting up over the past few years, but if it's what you really want to do over psych nursing, be sure to put it down first. Be sure your happy to have psych as a second option, rather than how it pays (AFAIK, the pay scales are about identical, for general, midwives, psych nurses etc)

I concur with Dr Galen. In the current economic climate, four years is a long time, no way of knowing what way pay rates and conditions will be like by then. They could be better, or worse, nobody knows. Also, the wage student nurses have been paid in the final year of their degree for their 36 week placement is to be scaled down by minister James Reilly to 50% of what it has been by 2015, which is an improvement, since Mary Harney had planned to have it dropped to zero

With an Irish nursing degree there is so much scope for using your qualifications abroad. Irish nurses I've known down through the years are working away in hospitals in UK and further afield in Oz/Nz and are highly regarded. Good luck

Dozen Wicked Words

Psychiatric Nursing pays as well/better than General. You get an allowance working in Mental Health services and pension terms were (not sure if they still are) more favourable in Mental Health than General, and you could retire considerably earlier. Might have changed though.

Weetbix

dooferoaks wrote: »

Psychiatric Nursing pays as well/better than General. You get an allowance working in Mental Health services and pension terms were (not sure if they still are) more favourable in Mental Health than General, and you could retire considerably earlier. Might have changed though.

If it pays the same why are the points less for psychiatric nursing then general.

Weetbix

Weetbix wrote: »

If it pays the same why are the points less for psychiatric nursing then general.

Points for a course have NOTHING to do with how well a job is paid, it's about supply and demand for the course and its calibre of applicants.

n900guy

Weetbix wrote: »

If it pays the same why are the points less for psychiatric nursing then general.

It's going to be a lot more demanding of you the general nursing = less attractive, more pay, and 30% of all patients (primary care and hospital care) have a psychiatric complaint, so it's also in demand.

ciara84

Deleted User wrote: »

Points for a course have NOTHING to do with how well a job is paid, it's about supply and demand for the course and its calibre of applicants.

this is only half true, usually, courses that get tagged for well paying jobs attract high-calibre of applicants, usually, most courses that put you into a spot for top-earning, say, most good math courses, are north of 450-500 points and get you jobs as an actuary, risk management etc, same with say physiotherapy etc its because the applicant pool is so concentrated of high calibre students, everyone applying for the math course is expecting to get that B1 in HL math so if you apply to medicine, you're not competing with someone who put it down on their CAO and is expecting 300 points, you're competing with people who put it down and are expecting over 500, because there are so many of them and so few places....


TL;DR no one getting 600 will be going on to do an apprenticeship in welding.

ciara84

ciara84 wrote: »

this is only half true, usually, courses that get tagged for well paying jobs attract high-calibre of applicants, usually, most courses that put you into a spot for top-earning, say, most good math courses, are north of 450-500 points and get you jobs as an actuary, risk management etc, same with say physiotherapy etc its because the applicant pool is so concentrated of high calibre students, everyone applying for the math course is expecting to get that B1 in HL math so if you apply to medicine, you're not competing with someone who put it down on their CAO and is expecting 300 points, you're competing with people who put it down and are expecting over 500, because there are so many of them and so few places....


TL;DR no one getting 600 will be going on to do an apprenticeship in welding.

There seems to be some CAO applicants who think that you need high 500s for dentistry and veterinary and actuary etc. because these are high professional careers with good salaries, not because people who want to do them are high calible. It is the applicants who decide the points.

For some reason, general nursing is attracting a larger number of applicants with higher points than psych nursing, that's for the moment anyhow, that could change in the future, points go up and down. 'How many points' in this scenario are nothing to do with how the job pays, that was my point.

ciara84

Deleted User wrote: »

There seems to be some CAO applicants who think that you need high 500s for dentistry and veterinary and actuary etc. because these are high professional careers with good salaries, not because people who want to do them are high calible. It is the applicants who decide the points.

For some reason, general nursing is attracting a larger number of applicants with higher points than psych nursing, that's for the moment anyhow, that could change in the future, points go up and down. 'How many points' in this scenario are nothing to do with how the job pays, that was my point.

the only way we can guage calibre is by points (since we dont have interviews etc etc), so when you put 2 and 2 together, its the people expecting high points (high calibre people) who go for the professional degrees and saturate the applicant pool with their calibre that the points have no way of coming down unless they stop applying, and general nursing being a professional degree is probably attractive in that sense, but there are so many nursing degrees out there and they usually attract applicant of every calibre, if you apply you will get in somewhere, unless you're geographically limited, they may be north of 450 or so where you live or in most "universities" but I'm sure there are few courses in the 300-400 bracket as well

some people are geographically limited, so they say well if I cant get enough points for "A" I might as well put down "B" because I dont want to go to "X town", back in my day, this actually happened to me, but thankfully I got my first choice, and didnt regret anything until later in life :P