What Does a Psychiatric Nurse Do?

A psychiatric nurse provides care and supports the physical and mental health of individuals, groups, families, and communities with and affected by mental health conditions. Sometimes referred to as psychiatric mental health nurses or psych nurses, these professionals receive specialised training that helps prepare them to take on additional responsibilities to care for people with psychological and behavioural problems. 

As a psychiatric nurse, your tasks will depend on where you work, your training, and your patients' needs. Typical duties include observing patients, administering medications, and helping with self-care and general physical health. It can be a varied and rewarding career requiring neurobiological, psychosocial, and nursing expertise.

Understanding what employers might expect from you as a psychiatric nurse and where it might take you as a career option can help ensure that it's a good fit for you. Read on to learn more about what it takes to be a psychiatric nurse in the UK.

Where do psychiatric nurses work, and what do they do?

As a psychiatric nurse, you might work in many different settings, evaluating and supporting your patients’ mental health needs and executing care plans with doctors. You'll work with a team of health professionals, including psychiatrists, psychotherapists, and social workers, to create, implement, and monitor treatment and care plans.

A few of the everyday things you might do in this role include:

• Conducting intake screening and evaluation

• Working with interdisciplinary teams

• Educating patients and their families

• Providing community education

• Practising crisis intervention

• Providing case management

• Promoting general/overall health 

• Administering and monitoring treatment regimes

• Teaching self-care and helping patients achieve individual goals

As a psychiatric nurse, you can expect to promote mental health in various ways. You might work with children exposed to trauma, soldiers coming home from combat, supporting adults and teenagers with mental illness, and more.

Your day-to-day duties will depend largely on where you choose to work. Psych nurses may work in any mental health service setting, including federal agencies, schools, rehabilitation centres, hospitals, and clinics. You might work in one or more of three typical settings, including hospitals, prisons, and assisted living facilities.

Hospitals

The NHS Mental Health Bulletin 2022-2023 Annual Reports states that more than three million people have been in contact with secondary health, learning disabilities, and autism services at some point during the recorded year [1]. While the severity ranges from mild to severe, and many people with mental illness won’t require inpatient care, hospitalisation is an available treatment option.

If you work as a psychiatric nurse in an inpatient treatment centre or hospital, you’ll likely work closely with other care team members. You’ll closely monitor patients, ensuring they receive an accurate diagnosis and subsequently adjust or stabilise their medications. Other common tasks include performing safety and risk assessments, managing meds, and assisting with patients' grooming and bathing.

Prisons

Up to 70 percent of people in the UK's prison system have two or more mental health diagnoses, according to research published by the House of Commons Justice Committee [2]. This underscores the need for psychiatric nurses in prison settings. Should you pursue a role in prisons, you may work as part of an inpatient psychiatric unit within the facility or as an outpatient psych nurse providing evaluations, interventions, and counselling to inmates in the general population.

Assisted living facilities

Patients in long-term care facilities typically have serious health problems and may be dealing with forms of dementia, which is commonly associated with forms of depression and anxiety. As a psych nurse in a nursing home or assisted living facility, you will likely consult with health professionals and psychiatrists to manage patients' mental and physical health, create and monitor treatment plans, and manage medications.

What does it take to be successful as a psychiatric nurse?

To be successful as a psych nurse, you’ll need a combination of education and experience to develop essential skills and the passion and drive to work in a potentially stressful environment. In addition to having a solid foundation in general nursing and holding an active licence as a registered nurse, it’s also helpful to cultivate skills such as: 

• Critical thinking: Every patient has unique psychological needs. As a psych nurse, you'll need to approach each patient using a personalised approach based on assessments and psychiatric nursing techniques.

• Compassion and empathy: As a psych nurse, you must never forget you're treating a person's mind in addition to their emotions and personality. You'll need to be able to listen, try to understand patients' points of view, and use interpersonal skills to build rapport with patients and their families.

• Interest in mental health nursing: To succeed in this role, you must be passionate and interested in your work. Psychiatric nursing isn't just a job you choose for the paycheck. You should have a passion for helping others with their mental health struggles, a drive to understand and continue learning about the brain and mental illnesses, and the desire to help impact change in mental healthcare.

• Reliability and consistency: Your patients and coworkers will rely on you to provide a steady quality of care and maintain constant professionalism.

Advancing your career as a psychiatric nurse

Several options are available if you want to expand the scope of your mental health nursing career. One way is to specialise. You may choose an area of focus such as child and adolescent mental health, acute care, military mental health, substance use disorders, or psychiatric care for the elderly. You might also choose to move into an advanced nurse practitioner position, which requires advanced education and registering with the Royal College of Nursing. It involves tasks like consulting or working as a liaison, providing consultations and mental health services to patients and families, and collaborating with integrated healthcare providers. 

Psychiatric nurse vs psychiatric nurse practitioner

As a psychiatric nurse, you'll be essential in caring for patients with mental and behavioural health needs. You'll work with psychiatrists, social workers, and psychiatric nurse practitioners who oversee cases, determine diagnoses, and order treatments. The level of care you provide differs when you choose to advance your career and become a psych nurse practitioner. As a psych nurse practitioner, you can:

• Write prescriptions

• Perform advanced assessments

• Design and order treatment and care plans

• Diagnose conditions

• Provide psychotherapy or counselling

Pros and cons

Working as a psychiatric nurse can be very rewarding, but it has unique challenges. A few of the pros and cons of working as a psychiatric nurse include:

• Pro: Higher pay and increased job satisfaction

• Con: Increased need for patience, attentiveness, and endurance

• Pro: Potential for job growth and security

• Con: You may work in volatile, higher-risk settings

• Pro: You can work in a variety of settings  

Career outlook for psychiatric nurses

A recent report from the World Health Organisation discovered that a global shortage of mental health nurses is costing millions of people adequate care. The National Health Service’s (NHS) second quarter 2024 reports showed more than 31,000 open nursing positions [3]. To cope with the nursing shortage across the UK, the National Health Service (NHS) launched a campaign in 2022 to recruit tens of thousands of nurses. 

Given that 41,000 nurses work in mental health in the UK, you can expect ongoing demand for psychiatric nurses in the UK and worldwide [4].

Salary outlook

Just as there’s a strong demand for psych nurses, there’s also a strong earning potential, which may be impacted by where and if you choose to specialise. Across the UK, psychiatric nurses make anywhere from £32,000 to £49,000 or more, although the average annual salary is £40,007, according to Glassdoor UK [6]. 

Steps to becoming a psychiatric nurse

To become a registered mental health nurse (RMN), you must gain a postgraduate degree and receive extensive training in your educational programme before entering the workforce. You’ll also need to register with the Nursing and Midwifery Council. 

Education options

Your education is an excellent starting point for becoming a psychiatric nurse. The typical educational path involves getting a degree in mental health nursing in a Nursing and Midwifery Council-approved program, which typically takes about three years to complete full-time. Other possible educational paths include training in the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, or British Army. 

Additionally, if you already work in a hospital or other health-related setting, you may be able to pursue a degree apprenticeship, which takes approximately four years to complete. For nurses already working in the health field, you may be able to complete an 18-month course to convert to a mental health nurse.

After completing your education, you’ll need to register with the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

Clinical experience and practice

Mental health nursing educational programs include clinical experience. About half of the program typically includes supervised work in local hospitals and community health settings. For newly qualified mental health nurses, you may find entry-level positions to gain experience. Additionally, having relevant work experience, even volunteering or shadowing nurses, can demonstrate your interest in the field and help your application stand out when applying for a job. 

Continuing education

You'll need to renew your registration annually and revalidate every three years by completing the minimum number of practice and continuing professional development hours (CPD). As a mental health nurse, you’ll need to complete 35 hours of CPD, at least 20 of which must include participatory learning.

Next steps

Psychiatric nurses are key members of the medical teams responsible for supporting patients in need of mental health services. If you’re considering a career in mental health nursing, you may want to read or take some courses to become familiar with the conditions, behaviours, and issues you’re likely to face.

To be successful in this role, you should be passionate about helping people with mental health issues and confident in your knowledge of nursing practices and how the brain works. Once you’ve gained clinical experience, you may consider earning a master’s or doctoral degree to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner to advance your career. Options such as Imperial College London’s Health Systems Development Specialisation on Coursera may help you develop the skills needed for this field.