LondonNurse

Hiya

I'm in my final year of my Dip HE (Child Branch) Nursing course at a London Uni. Myself and my b/f (a radiographer) are desparate to get out there. But I've asked one of my tutors about working out there to Sydney and she says i'll be classed as an "enrolled nurse" by the registration board because I havnt done the general training, even tho whilst in australia i'll be working as a paeds nurse!

I've been offered a job on a general ward in london when i finish my training and im thinking of taking it and then leaving for Australia after a year, but i don't want to go if im going ot be classed as an enrolled nurse & probably paid less than an RN anyway!

Has anyone got any experience of working in Australia as a Nurse? is it a lot different than the UK? Do nurses have the same responsabilities? Did you use an agency or do it yourself? What would you recommend? I've used an agency for bank work in London and i've found them to be money grabbing buggers so want to avoid using them, unless anyone has heard of a nice one???

Sorry the post is a bit long. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

pommie bastard

If its a case of being an EN forget it very low paid and looked down on, nursing here is very like UK thats why they are trying to encourage more to relocate to Australia.

Try these sites for information.
http://www.anf.org.au/nena/
http://www.anf.org.au/services/info_links.html

Just a small write up off the ANF.
QLD Nursing crisis: What crisis?

The Queensland Government says there is no chronic shortage of nurses in the State, despite its own figures showing there were at least 810 vacant nursing positions in the Queensland public health system in October.

The astonishing denial came during the final hearings of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission's (AIRC's) arbitration of the Queensland Nurses' Union's (QNU, ANF Qld) application for an interim pay rise - which gave public sector nurses a 3.8% interim pay rise.

The rise, which the QNU sought while waiting for the AIRC's decision on its entire wages and conditions claim, came into effect from the first pay period after 25 October.

QNU Secretary Gay Hawksworth said it was bizarre that at the same time State Government representatives tried to deny the nurse shortage at the AIRC, the Queensland Health Minister was announcing free flights for nurses to come home and fill vacancies at Queensland Health.

'Coming on top of the latest rise in nursing vacancies, this initiative proves beyond doubt that Queensland is having trouble filling nursing positions,' Ms Hawksworth said.

'If there are plenty of nurses at home willing to do the job why do we have to offer incentives like free flights home?'

Ms Hawksworth said the QNU, using an analysis of nursing registration figures and historical date, estimated there were up to 10,000 Queensland RNs and ENs not working as nurses.

'This is about 20% of the total and many could be enticed to return if working conditions were improved and wages better matched to the difficult work nurses are now expected to perform,' Ms Hawksworth said.

The QNU launched its Nurses Worth Looking After campaign in March 2002 with the objective of rebuilding the State's nursing workforce through a range of initiatives including improving public sector nurses wages and ensuring workloads are safe for patients and nurses.

At the time of writing, the QNU was waiting for its claim to be heard before the full bench of the AIRC in December.

LondonNurse

Hi

I'm not an enrolled nurse and I don't really want to travel all the way to Australia to be an enrolled nurse when I've spent 3 years trainging hard in the UK.

In the uk Im classed as a registered nurse. But I have taken the child branch route, which means i can only work with 0-18 year olds and not Adults.Similarly, an adult branch trained nurse in the UK cannot work with children without doing the Child branch course.

My tutor at Uni believes that I won't get full registration with the NSW board of nurses because I am specificially trained in Paediatric Nursing.

Are there any nurses working in Paeds in Australia who know anything about it? Would they recommend I do my Adult conversion course?

Thanks.

scoobydooathome

Hi there,

It may be an idea to continue with your training in the UK then move to OZ, to be assessed by the ANC and claim 60 points you will need to have 3 years actual work experience unfortunately 3 years training does not count.

Nursing in OZ pays a comparable salary to the UK, yes we are still earning peanuts

Good Luck.

Ginny

Hi there,

I'm an Adult nurse working here in the UK in neonates. I have had friends that went on a working holiday visa a couple of years ago to Oz. One was a child nurse and was not able to register as a registered nurse because she was child only. It does seem to be that you would not be treated as a registered nurse over there. Have you tried contacting the Australian Nursing Council who would be able to confirm or not whether you could work as registered nurse or not.

Not much help I know but keep trying.

Regards

Ginny