A MENTAL health trust is offering to pay for former nurses training and give them a £500 bonus to return to the profession.

Struggling under a shortage of nursing staff, Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the mental health services across the county, is hoping to recruit 150 nurses to work in Sussex and Hampshire.

Nurse consultant Kate Stammers, has returned to nursing after a six-year break raising her two sons.

Kate, 42, from Lewes, said: “Being able to help someone when they are really struggling, being able to sit with them and listen to them at one of the most difficult times in their lives and being able to help them is a real privilege. You get to see so much of life in mental health nursing, it really is so special.

“It’s a really challenging time to be working in the NHS but there is such a sense of everyone pulling together to do what they can and when you join the trust you join a whole new nursing community and we are there to support each other.”

Kate qualified as a mental health nurse in the 1990s in London where she worked specialising in a number of roles with children and adults who suffered from eating disorders before moving to Sussex.

When her children came along she gave up her career, doing waitressing and even running a tanning salon.

“But I did always miss nursing,” she said.

After returning to the profession she is now a consultant nurse, supporting more than 150 nurses in the trust’s children and young people’s services, perinatal services and early intervention in psychosis services.

She said: “I remember saying to my husband, ‘I can’t do this, it’s going to be too difficult, I’ve been out too long’ but I was supported by Sussex Partnership Foundation Trust every step of the way and it’s amazing how quickly it all comes back. I can’t imagine not having this job as a part of my life, and part of my identity now.

“I think people go into nursing because they’re a certain type of person and that never leaves you, no matter how long you might have spent away from the job.”

“I was worried that my kids might lose out by me returning but the flexibility offered by the trust means I still get to pick them up and they are so proud of me.

“They say to me ‘I love the fact that you help people Mum’.”

“I was really nervous when I started back.

“I remember sitting in a meeting being surrounded by all these really professional people.

“I felt overwhelmed but I also felt really inspired.

“I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to do it and that things had moved on too much while I had been away but you get back into it so quickly and now I am the one running those meetings.”