Well, we are now in a fog of low morale and lack of information, in which the rumours suggest that many CP posts will be down-banded and the current post-holders given only limited pay protection. We’ve got an initial meeting next week to hear what is planned, but I really don’t expect we will hear the truth until our posts have transferred over. It seems inevitable that there will either be redundancies or an attempt to avoid paying out by hoping that with down-banding people will seek jobs elsewhere, so everyone I know is considering their options (and regularly checking the job pages).

Personally, even though I am one of the people with least commitments to hold me here (as I don’t have kids in a local school, or a partner who wouldn’t be willing to move, or a house in negative equity) I’ve felt much more impact than I expected. I’ve lost motivation towards my work – I’m reluctant to get up in the morning, I’ve let my admin get behind, and I’m not doing the extra hours I normally do. In work I feel like I can’t make long term plans, so its really hard to think about the scoping exercise I’m supposed to be doing as part of the induction for my new post.

However, its also opened up a whole set of new ideas – if I’m not anchored to this job in this location then my husband could look for a job that he might like better than the one he is doing at present, or we could build a house on a Scottish Island, or I could have a career break and have babies, or I could turn my private court work into a proper business. This means it is harder to refuse requests for private work, in case this becomes my main source of income over the next year.

My mind is constantly wandering away from my NHS work and considering other possibilities, like whether it is worth finding a way to appeal the decision, or whether we should be working together to create another option like contracting directly with social services. It feels like as an individual I’ve lost my focus, but also that I’m in an organisation that has lost its focus. How can this be good for the NHS compared to the dedicated focused team we were a couple of months ago?