"then I'll forget about applying to work for the ambulance service. I'll train as a nurse instead." NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, do not train as a nurse, our service, standards, number of trained people on each shift and pay are all getting as buggered about as poor old tom's job. NHS careers are dying on their feet, there are now practically no interesting specialist roles to move into once you are firmly bored of working a week of 12 hour night shifts EVERY month. And as for pay don't even get me started, having been done over by agenda for change quite badly, i am a nurse with over 6 years of ITU experience and am struggling to get a mortgage in an area of nottingham where you arn't regularly raped and killed. Tom, my heart goes out to you, its the dumbing down of your service and is very disrespectful to you and your collegues who work bloody hard and already get paid less than i do. Its madness, its the equivalent of community support offficers, or HCA's level3 in nursing, or Doctors assistant's. Bloody chaos. having just spent £1000 on an HGV course to join the ambulance service, i am now stood here going................................. maybe not..... i think that this will have a very bad effect on your recruitment and retention