Pros
The recruitment consultant did warn me that the role is not for everyone. I enjoyed the initial training however this training is not reflective of what the job entails. Clinical lead and manager were lovely and just doing their job but the structure of the company and targets lead to micromanagement. I was showed empathy when I raised that I was mentally struggling.
Cons
Like many nurses before me and many more to come, I ignored the negative reviews and was blindsided by the salary on offer and the scope to work Monday to Friday 9-5. How wrong I was! Firstly when you consider all the case preparation you are required to complete, the role is more like 8am-7pm with additional weekend work that you inevitably end up having to complete to keep on top of your caseload! Suddenly that competitive salary does not look quite as enticing! I lasted 7 months in this role and ended up leaving due to my mental health taking a complete nosedive and this workplace anxiety from being constantly under the microscope affected me for a long time after this and destroyed my confidence. My experience resulted in me being medicated for anxiety. It is now over 2 years since I left and I am really reflecting on how much my experience negatively affected me in the long-term. Never have I been made to feel so useless and incompetent in all my years of nursing. I am an experienced and competent nurse and am absolutely thriving in my current role where I have now been working and developing my career for a long time, however I was put on a PIP whilst I was working at ATOS due to not achieving enough A1 grades. You are micromanaged by non-clinical managers who have absolutely no idea about what your job entails and expect a simple case to take the same amount of time as a complex case, all the company care about is targets and numbers. I will reiterate again however that this appears to be due to the structure of the company, the individuls I worked with were lovely but it appeared that it was their job to micromanage. Nothing is taken into consideration at all particularly the mental health of thehealthcare professionals. The constant negative reinforcement of having reports being returned to you for an issue that could be as minor as a typo (with no allocated time to amend these) having no set time to have a break or to have lunch and being constantly told there is another claimant waiting and being forced to rush what you are doing really takes its toll. You are required to get 5 A1 grade reports in a row in order to pass your probationary period. If you get a single grade that is still a pass but under that you are required to start from the very beginning and the auditing is subjective! One auditor can have an entirely different opinion to another so can result in a different grade, I truly believe that this grading system is not fair-unsure if it has changed since I worked there. All my nurse friends have been sent multiple adverts for Disability Assessor roles- there is clearly a reason the turnover is so high and they are always looking for staff! Every nurse I've met who has tried this role has lasted a few months only. I know for a fact that the week I left, multiple other HP's also left the office I worked at for similar reasons. Something needs to change.