From NHS to OnlyFans: Why young workers are abandoning the ailing health service

Growing numbers of NHS and social care workers have revealed they are abandoning their healthcare roles in favour of selling home-made porn and saucy pictures.

Swapping exhausting and poorly paid jobs for OnlyFans, some are making in excess of £1,000 a day thanks to their mountain of subscribers who pay in the region of £10-a-month. 

Charities said they are receiving ‘regular calls from NHS workers – especially nurses’ – about the website. Most are mothers, they claimed. 

But the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP), a campaign group supporting women in adult work, also warned it was concerned by the increasing levels of ‘stalking and harassment’ these women face. 

OnlyFans is a social media platform, used primarily by adult content creators.

Swathes sell personalised pictures and videos – often while naked – to followers who pay a monthly subscription. Famous users include former glamour model Katie Price, who currently charges subscribers around £7 per month.

Other celebrities, musicians and comedians also use the site for non-sexual content. 

A spokesperson for the ECP told MailOnline: ‘We get regular calls from NHS workers, especially nurses, who are starting sex work including by joining OnlyFans. 

‘Women describe how their NHS wages have been cut severely over the last 10 years and they can no longer cover essentials like rent, food and heating. 

‘Most are mothers supporting families.’ 

They added: ‘Women speak about the money they can earn on OnlyFans as life-saving but it isn’t all a rosy picture. 

‘Women we speak to working in the NHS have to be particularly careful not to show their face and be identified, and that means they have to work harder for less income. 

‘Plus, we have seen an increase in complaints from women about stalking and harassment.’ 

No figures exist on how many have left for OnlyFans.

It comes amid a widespread staffing crisis engulfing the health service.

As well as OnlyFans, carers and NHS staff have been leaving roles paying just £10 an hour for higher salaries at supermarkets, restaurants and online retailers. 

Other medics and nurses have gone abroad, swapping the UK for locations including Australia for better pay, working conditions and work-life balance. 

Hospitals are already short of more than 70,000 staff across England, according to the latest workforce data, with another 40,000 across the wider NHS. 

The problem in social care is even worse, with an estimated 165,000 vacancies.

Since December, ambulance workers, nurses, junior doctors, physiotherapists have taken to the picket lines in disputes over pay and working conditions. 

Some have said they have been unable to pay their rent, with others forced to rely on food banks. 

While three days of junior doctor strikes came to a close on Friday, hundreds of thousands of RCN members began voting last month on whether to continue holding strike action, after the existing six-month mandate ran out at the start of May.   

NHS unions under ‘Agenda for Change’ contracts collectively opted to accept the Government’s offer of a five per cent pay rise plus a one-off payment worth up to £1,600 in England earlier this month.

But nurses in the RCN rejected the deal by a slender majority, leading the general secretary to admit she had ‘underestimated’ members. 

James Cowe left his full time healthcare assistant role at a dementia care home, after making his entire monthly salary in just the first 24 hours on OnlyFans.

Earning under £1,100 per month, he quit in 2021 after the government offered staff a one per cent pay rise. He called it a ‘kick in the teeth’ and warned other social care and NHS staff members were quitting to move into different careers where they felt more appreciated. 

The 25-year-old, from Bournemouth, told MailOnline he had ‘reached breaking point at the peak of Covid’. 

He now spends between 12 to 16 hours a day creating custom content for his 900+ followers, charging subscribers as little as £9 ($11.99) per month. 

‘I left my job with the knowledge that if my employers found out I would have been sacked,’ he said. 

Last month, former ambulance workers Kayley Winterson, 26, and Emily Rose, 28, from Norfolk, revealed they both turned to OnlyFans after the exhausting demands of the frontline role, which saw them endure 15-hour shifts, ‘destroyed’ their mental health.

The couple, who currently charge subscribers around £10 ($12.50) per month, took their joint account full time earlier this year in February after seeing ‘other people change their lives on the platform’ and are now ‘a million times happier’.  

They told MailOnline: ‘There are 100 per cent faceless content creators out there on the platform to subside their wages from the NHS.

‘Working standards in the NHS are poor and turnover is high. I expect to see a lot of people leave over the next few years and find avenues of earning money that are not so detrimental to their wellbeing.’ 

Meanwhile, 32-year-old Michaela Ogilvie, from Ramsgate, left her role as an NHS mental health social worker earlier this year after becoming ‘depressed’ by her role.

Since making the switch, the content creator has amassed nearly 20,000 followers on Instagram and 30,000 on TikTok.

But her income comes from OnlyFans, where she claims she is also in the top two percent of creators on the site and earns up to £1,000 a week. 

She said: ‘I enjoy it so much more than social work – it’s so freeing. For me it’s about taking back control.’

Forum users are also sharing their experiences of their ‘cushy side job’ on OnlyFans in online chatrooms, dubbing it ‘a graft’ and ‘a lot of hustle, blood sweat and tears’. 

Increasing numbers of Reddit threads are also filled with questions from healthcare professionals looking for advice on how to set up accounts and ‘make more money’. 

One user on the forum said ‘I live a double life as a medical professional’, detailed how they balanced their role with creating content on the adult website. 

In another, ‘OnlyFans as a junior doctor’, one said ‘I’ve been desperate to try and hustle few quid here and there from OnlyFans for years’. 

Another questioned, ‘if I don’t disclose that I am a doctor, would the GMC (General Medical Council) have an issue with either? Could it impact my career in any way?’ 

Users equally questioned how medical regulators would react if they were identified via their OnlyFans profile. 

Under guidance for doctors published by the General Medical Council, ‘if a concern means a doctor could pose a risk to patients or to it should be raised with us’, the regulator warns. 

‘If you identify yourself as a doctor in publicly accessible social media, you should also identify yourself by name,’ it adds.

‘Any material written by authors who represent themselves as doctors is likely to be taken on trust and may reasonably be taken to represent the views of the profession more widely.’ 

Anonymous content ‘can in many cases be traced back to its point of origin’, the regulator also cautions.  

Equally, ‘using social media also creates risks, particularly where social and professional boundaries become unclear’. 

And in March, Australian nurses and midwives were warned against posting on  OnlyFans by the industry’s professional complaints body. 

Medical workers risked being ‘a distraction for patients’, the Nursing and Midwifery Council of New South Wales said in an email to the state’s nurses and midwives.

Headlined ‘OnlyFans – Are you breaching the professional standards by subscribing to online content services?’, workers were also urged to discuss scenarios with their colleagues in which they might be recognised by a patient due to their presence on the platform. 

‘If a practitioner is the content creator, then being recognised or publishing photographs in uniform, they could be reported for their conduct – deemed by the complainant as unprofessional, or as one said, a distraction for patients,’ the email read.

‘The social media guidance is clear on the obligation of nurses and midwives to maintain professional boundaries, and where relevant the Nursing and Midwifery Board may consider social media use in your private life – even when there is no identifiable link to you as a registered health practitioner – if it raises concerns about your fitness to hold registration.’

In the US, Allie Rae, 38, was also forced to ditch her 15-year-long nursing career in 2021 after her employer discovered her OnlyFans account and gave her an ultimatum. 

The senior neonatal nurse from Boston, who worked in intensive care throughout the first two years of the pandemic, was told she would be fired if she did not delete her raunchy account.

But the mum-of-three instead turned to sex work full-time and now creates content exclusively with her husband, earning up to £270,000 per month.

Meet the Brits who’ve traded in NHS and social care jobs to earn thousands online on OnlyFans

James Cowe 

The 25-year-old spent six years working as an assistant in dementia care before quitting in March 2021 to embark on his OnlyFans venture. 

He told MailOnline: ‘I initially started working in healthcare part time whilst I was studying at college. 

‘I was attracted to the role because I have a great relationship with my grandparents and loved the idea of being able to look after and care for elderly people. 

‘We have a family-run care home in which I worked at for six months before moving onto various other homes. Then when I finished college I became a full-time healthcare assistant. 

‘All of my roles provided care for vulnerable adults and some with challenging behaviour.’

But after a ‘tough day at work’, one evening that March he ‘opened a bottle of wine, signed up but made the link private’, he said. 

It meant followers had to request his OnlyFans link directly from him.    

‘This gave me a chance to see if there was any interest before fully taking the risk of my family or colleagues finding out,’ he added.

‘Within the first 24 hours I had made over a month’s salary.’

Just three days later he made his OnlyFans link public, handed his notice in with immediate effect and in his first month creating content online, ‘made well over my annual salary’.

He told MailOnline: ‘I reached breaking point at the peak of Covid. With the new guidelines forcing us to wear masks, aprons and gloves for the full 12 hour shifts, it made our jobs extremely uncomfortable in the heat.

‘The demands of the role had changed and became increasingly wearing. At this point I was working full time and earning under £1,100 a month. 

‘With the pressure of never having any money and being in a substantial amounts of debt I felt the one per cent pay rise offered by the government was an insult.’ 

He added: ‘I was looking around on social media to see what other creators were doing to make money and the concept of OnlyFans made me feel uncomfortable. 

‘But after a few months of more gruelling poorly paid shifts it was a concept that I was finding increasingly harder to ignore and more attractive.’

Now boasting over 900 subscribers, this count has fluctuated over the last two and a half years and ‘all depends on the amount of hours I put in’, he noted. 

In February he revealed he had earned £160,000 since turning to OnlyFans full-time. 

On some days he can spend up to 12 to 16 hours ‘creating content’ and ‘engaging’ with his followers. 

‘I feel my healthcare shifts prepared me for such long hours,’ he told MailOnline. 

‘OnlyFans is a full time job, you get out what you put in. But it provides autonomy and freedom in how you work – which is something I didn’t have or had experienced in any of my previous jobs.’

He said: ‘I told my parents a week before I made the jump to OnlyFans and they were really upset about it in the beginning, to be honest. 

‘Both my mum and dad were worried about all the risks involved in essentially being an OnlyFans creator. 

‘But when they saw the success they came around and now my mum films a lot of my content for me and helps me come up with new ideas for Instagram reels.’

He added: ‘My advice to any healthcare worker with an an OnlyFans account would be don’t get caught. 

‘I left my job with the knowledge that if my employers found out I would’ve been sacked.’

Kayley Winterson and Emily Rose 

A couple who worked as emergency medical technicians (EMTs) for the ambulance service ditched their roles to take OnlyFans full-time in February. 

Kayley Winterson, 26, and Emily Rose, 28, from Norfolk, claim they are now a ‘million times happier’ and rake in four times more than what they earned in the NHS, which was around £11-an-hour.

Speaking about their health service roles, they told MailOnline: ‘We both really enjoyed the challenges the pre-hospital environment would send our way. 

‘No day was ever the same and we were able to make a meaningful difference to peoples lives especially during the lockdown.’

Ms Winterson set up an account initially in March 2022, and after leaving the 999 service, worked at a Covid testing centre.

It wasn’t until January 2023, that Ms Rose followed suit after a particularly traumatic call on the job and months of ‘anxiety breakdowns’ and in February, they launched a joint account.  

‘We saw other people change their lives on the platform,’ they said. 

‘Everyone’s goal is to be secure and working for the ambulance service our wages were poor and the work to life balance was zero to none.

‘As a couple, by February 2023 we realised if we were going to do it now was the time. 

‘We missed the opportunity so many people took on this platform during lockdown because we were still working for the ambulance service.’

They currently boast an average of 1,000 subscribers, ‘but this goes up and down as all OnlyFans creators will say,’ they added. 

‘We don’t really focus on the numbers, we focus on making great content and having that connection with our subscribers.

‘Our work life balance is outstanding, we recently bought a campervan and spend a lot of our time resting on different beaches around the UK. 

‘OnlyFans is great because you can schedule content ahead so you can really focus on your wellbeing and rest days. 

‘We dedicate two days a week to content creation and editing and that would then be scheduled so we can enjoy our weekends – every weekend.’ 

There have however been learning curves since taking the role full time, they warned. 

‘We had to learn how to separate OnlyFans from our personal relationship and remember to spend time as just us again. 

‘We give people all access to our relationship but recognise we need some things that are just for us.’

They told MailOnline: ‘Anyone that’s spoken to our face has been rather positive. We can’t and don’t imagine what people are saying behind our backs because we don’t care.

‘This is our life and we are doing what makes us happy. If people chose not to support us because of our job I think it’s a reflection of their emotional intelligence and not ours.’

But they warned not to expect to early ‘instant big money’ when creating an OnlyFans account. 

‘It has no internal traffic so if you’re not bringing your audience across you will not achieve anything. Start by building your social media platforms and really do your research before taking the jump.’ 

They added: ‘There are 100 per cent faceless content creators out there on the platform to subside their wages from the NHS.’ 

‘Working standards in the NHS are poor and turnover is high. I expect to see a lot of people leave over the next few years and find avenues of earning money that are not so detrimental to their wellbeing.’

Michaela Ogilvie 

Michaela Ogilvie was an NHS social worker but now earns up to £1,000 a week on OnlyFans. 

The 32-year-old from Ramsgate, who also has a masters degree in adult social work, claimed her role became ‘depressing’, and following a series of events in February 2023, she started looking for a new income.

She told KentOnline in April: ‘I wasn’t happy – I was really depressed going to work.

‘You have a lot of responsibility as a social worker so it’s not a job you can do half-heartedly.

A series of events involving a ‘rude’ manager and an accident involving an ambulance triggered the decision, she said.  

‘On the way home an ambulance hit the side of my car as it came out of a junction – completely writing it off.

‘That meant I couldn’t get to my job any more anyway.

‘Also, one of my clients passed away. She died in a care home but wanted to be at home, and I realised you can’t do what you want to do to help people in the job.’

The content creator had already built a large TikTok following of almost 20,000, with a further 25,900 on Instagram. 

But her income comes from OnlyFans, where she claims she is also in the top two percent of creators on the site.

She said: ‘I enjoy it so much more than social work – it’s so freeing. For me it’s about taking back control.’

‘Sometimes you get in your head and feel a bit cheap. Sometimes I worry what people think of me.

‘Men ask me to do things with them in person, and people think I’m a s*** – but I’m actually celibate.’

@kkutiepie

Other NHS workers who set up accounts while still working in the health service, have remained anonymous.

A middle-aged single mother from East Yorkshire, known only as @kkutiepie, sends pictures and videos to men on the service alongside her day job as a health worker. 

The woman, who prefers to stay anonymous, also offers sex advice to couples whose sex lives have turned stale.

She told HullLive last year: ‘People might think it’s crazy, but this is about empowering myself as a woman and finally doing something for me, that I want to do.

‘This is a real liberation for me, it’s about taking control of my life and my independence and not being reliant on anyone else financially or emotionally.

‘With this secret job I can keep a roof over our heads and not be forced to ask anyone else for help or money.’

A meagre NHS pay rise left her with no other option but to turn to OnlyFans she said, as her salary was nowhere near enough to pay for her house and bills and didn’t want to have to ask anyone for money.

Starting the account was ‘liberating’, she added, allowing her to be more adventurous after coming out of a long-term relationship.

She said she wants to help women using the site to give them sex advice and act as a ‘therapist’.

Hollie Munroe

For some carers, switching to OnlyFans hasn’t just allowed for a better life in Britain.

Hollie Munroe, now 26, from Hertfordshire, quit her job caring for the elderly to jet off to Marbella in Spain, where she lives off her cash earned on the site.

After five years of being a carer — in which she would work up to 60 hours in a week — she decided to give it up for the adult website.

She told the Daily Star last year: ‘I was going to loads and loads of houses for really s*** money.

‘Of course, there are bits to it that I miss. I enjoyed my job, I liked all of it because it was rewarding.

‘But it was the money for me – I only got paid £8 an hour.’

Charging subscribers around £7.80 ($9.99) per month, she is ranked in the top eight per cent of all OnlyFans accounts. 

Her monthly income varies depending on how much she chooses to post on the site.

But she said she had no plans to move back to the UK because she is enjoying Marbella too much.

‘I get paid for doing basically nothing. I just sit on my phone for a few hours and that’s about it really,’ she said.

‘Every day I get up, go to the beach, go shopping and come home. I just got sick of England and thought I could rent in Spain while doing a lot less. I don’t miss England at all.’