Mental Health Nurse | RMN Jobs

Mental Health Nurse jobs: frequently asked questions

(Updated Dec 2024)

Welcome to Nurses.co.uk Mental Health Nurse jobs page, featuring all the latest jobs for Mental Health Nurses throughout the UK, as well as frequently asked questions below.

Mental health nurse jobs' frequently asked questions

What does a Mental Health Nurse do?

As a Registered Mental Health Nurse, you’ll provide support to people living will all kinds of mental health conditions.

This can involve everything from helping them to come to terms with a diagnosis, to finding ways of helping them to cope, adapt and lead a positive life.

You can decide to work with particular types of people, such as children or older people; or within a specific field, such as substance abuse and addiction.

Typically, you’ll work within a multi-disciplinary team, supporting psychiatrists, GPs, social workers, and many others besides.

Your work may also take you to a variety of settings, including patients’ homes, community healthcare centres, specialist units or hospital outpatient departments.

What are the daily responsibilities of a Mental Health Nurse?

Day-to-Day, Mental Health Nurses do a wide variety of things, and the nature of the role varies according to the setting and specialism you work within.

Some of the most common responsibilities include:

• Making initial assessments about a patient’s needs

• Building a subsequent care plan

• Planning and implementing relevant medication and monitoring the results

• Providing practical coping mechanisms for patients

• Preparing and managing therapy sessions

• Supporting the implementation of therapy planning

• Maintaining patient records

• Monitoring legal and regulatory requirements carefully

• Working with patients’ families to help educate them about the condition at hand

• Identifying when patients become a risk to themselves or others

Much like other areas of nursing, Mental Health Nurses often work in a shift pattern – although community-based work is more structured. Increasingly, mental healthcare is moving into community settings.

How do you become a Mental Health Nurse?

To become a Mental Health Nurse you need to be registered with the Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC).

And to be eligible to register you need to complete a nursing degree.

Courses typically last three years and are available at universities and educational institutions throughout the UK. Half of your course will involve clinical practice.

Part-time options and apprenticeships are also available.

To complete your degree and to secure a mental health nursing role, you’ll also need certain skills in particular.

These include a huge amount of emotional resilience and patience, superb communication skills, and a great degree of openness. It’s an especially challenging field of nursing, so it’s important to appreciate those challenges before entering this career.

How much does a Mental Health Nurse get paid?

Mental Health Nurse salaries are in line with the pay packets of other professional nurses. Starting at Band 5 on the official pay-scale, newly qualified Mental Health Nurses will earn more than £29,000 a year – rising incrementally for every year of service until you reach the top of the banding.

If you gain new experiences, and ideally, qualifications, you can work your way into higher bandings – and higher salaries. Band 6 positions can inch towards £45,000 a year, and Band 7 positions can go beyond £50,000 a year.

For exact details on what you could earn, check out our NHS pay calculator.

Beyond this, with enough experience and specialist knowledge, you might be able to progress towards consultant level, or even branch out and become a lecturer.

The NHS is the major employer of Mental Health Nurses, but private healthcare companies and mental health charities also offer roles.

Salaries in the private sector vary more widely, but the benefits are rarely as good as in the NHS.

As a Registered Mental Health Nurse, you’ll also have the option to work as a bank or agency employee, which offers greater flexibility, and in some cases, a higher daily rate of pay. But success as a bank or agency worker depends on a great many factors.

Find your next Mental Health Nursing job today

View our latest roles above, or if you can’t find what you’re looking for, create an account and register your CV here and we’ll send you the latest roles as soon as they arise.