jakie

Hiya can anyone give me some advice on starting the emigration process from the uk to New Zealand. I am a registered general nurse with two years post qualification experience. Ideally I would like to be out there next August 2010 with hopefully a 6 or 12 month hospital contract if possible. My partner also wishes to go to New Zealand but we are unsure on the points process as he is a painter and decorator with an nvq 2 qualification and we are not married. I also have a 12 year daughter who will be accompanying me as well, will we need three sets of points ? . Any advice would be much appreciated as I have been going around in circles and have read that much literature I dont know what to do first.

thanks

Jaks.

Persephone

Hi Jakie,
I'll try and help but that's a pretty big question there

First off do you want permanent residency or a temporary work permit. If you want a work permit then you need to get a job first and obviously it will be for 1-3years only.
I assume you're more interested in permanent residency so I'll try and explain that.

You send in an expresssion of interest [EOI] which is per family and not per person so all three of you will be on that EOI
Either you or your partner will be classed as the principal candidate and it is this person only that will claim the points.
It may be better for you to beprincipal as RGNs are on the long term skill shortage list and you can then claim extra points for your qualification and work experience. Also those with quals and experience in an area of skills shortage are generally selected very quickly from the EOI pool even if they have just over 100pts

The principal candidate gains points for age, work experience, qualifications, work experience and quals in an area of skills shortage, partners quals, whether you have a job offer in NZ mainly

Your daughter will not gain you any points but you may get some points for your partner's qualifications.

Not being married makes no difference but you do have to prove that you have lived together for a year for the two of you to class as being in a genuine relationship. This applies whether married or not!

You need to check that your qualification is on the "list of recognised qualifications"-this is on the NZIS website. There are plenty of nurses on here so hopefully they'll be able to give you more advice on the nurse qual side of things. Also on best places to look for jobs.

Best place to start is by registering online on the NZIS website. You can then start an EOI and see how many points you get. You do not have to submit it straight away [or at all!] and you can save it and do it bit by bit

I hope this has helped, though it's probably a bit waffly I'm afraid.

Just ask away if/when you have more questions. Someone will try and help

Good luck
Sue

Persephone

I'm going to try again as I wrote the above in a hurry and cannot edit it now. So I'm hoping this will make things clearer

For permanent residence:
You need to work out your points and if you have over 100 then you can submit an EOI and go into the pool.
There are draws every 2 weeks where all those with a job offer or over 140pts are automatically selected from the pool. Then it's usually those with work experience or qualifications in an area of skills shortage that are picked. So you can see that going with the candidate who is on the long term skill shortage list is more likely to get selected

Once selected your EOI is assessed and if acceptable you will be sent an ITA [invitation to apply]. This can take months but is much quicker if you have a job offer.

The ITA is a copy of your EOI and you need to send this back with medical and xray results, police certificates, proof of qualification and occupational registration, work experience and anything else you mentioned on your EOI. Once NZIS receive this they will check it and then decide whether to grant permanent residency or a work to residence visa.

It is only the points that the principal candidate achieves that are counted. You cannot add together yours and your partners
As I said, you get extra if your job is on the long term skill shortage list so you would have more chance if you apply and your partner is the non principal candidate. Have a look under the skilled migrant category and find the Essential Skills in Demand lists, from there go to the long term skills shortage list. It will tell you what quals are needed to claim the extra pts.

Your partner and daughter need to be included on the EOI but do not score points [ though you may gain 20pts if his qualifications are recognised]
You need to check on the List of Recognised Qualifications on NZIS website for your own and his quals. If they are not there then they will need to be assessed by NZQA though I don't know much about what's involved there or whether it is worth getting his assessed if you have over 100pts on your own.

Register and start an EOI and that will give you a better idea of what is required and how many points you can claim.

Hope this hasn't confused things even more but I don't think I wrote the last post very well at all It confused me just reading it back to myself
The whole process is really quite easy once you get it sorted in your head as to what you need to do and the best way to do it. If you get stuck then just ask on here, everyone's very helpful

Sue

over50

The first thing if you want to work as a nurse in NZ is to get registered in NZ. This can take a few weeks to happen once you have all the necessary paper work sent. Collecting the necessary documentation as in nursing transcripts of training is vital as is references etc to send to NZ so your qualifications can be assessed. If you look on the NZNC website it will tell you all there what is required and how to go about becoming registered in NZ. Once you have NZ registration you will also need a practising certificate to allow you to work in nursing. All this comes at a price aswell, the NMC here in the UK charge for verification of you being on the register here and my training schools charged me also for transcripts of training, then you have to pay NZ for registering and of course for the practising certificate aswell. But please dont be daunted it might sound that way, but in the long run if you want it badly enough it is all worthwhile.
For your partners qualifications he may require to have these assessed by the NZQA the qualifications assessors seperate to the nznc ofcourse. They also have a website explaining the process and costs involved there aswell.
One thing to remember when collecting all this info is to get photocopies made for yourself and when they ask for certified copies please get a couple of extras for yourself as you may require them for something else later. I found this out for myself and paid a solicitor twice......

I hope this helped it is a labourious task collecting all the information believe me and this is only the start of collecting info but if you want this to happen and want to fulfill your dream it is well worth it. Good luck.
Steve and Dee

rikandmegan

Hi Jackie, I'm a nurse as well but only have a year or so to retirement at 55 and we are off to Cyprus to live, however my nephew who is a learning dis nurse moved to NZ 1st Jan 2008, and assures us he will never return to the UK

He applied for a post online, and strange as it sounds, was interviewed over over the phone. The Trust that offered the job gave a massive amount of help to him and his move was very smooth.

Start learning about registration, there are some good links here

http://www.healthstaffrecruitment.co...ew-zealand.php

Good luck with the move, I would be there myself if I was twenty years younger

jakie

hiya sue, thanks you very much for taking the time to come back to me (twice), i have found the info really helpfull as i had been going round in circles for a while, there are so many websites to look at.
Anyway thanks again and im sure there will be many more Q: i will need anwsers to.
Jaks

jakie

Hiya guys, thanks a lot for your help, really nice to hear from a fellow nurse.
That website is really usefull by the way.
Which part of NZ has your nephew gone to ?
Hope all goes well with the move to Cyprus, its amazing how many nurses are leaving the uk, i cant wait for a break from ward politics for a while, HAHA.
Thanks again
Jaks

jakie

Hiya steve and dee, thanks for the reply the info was very useful and thanks for the heads up about copying everything, that will save me some money.
I notice that your application has been approved, congratulations, when are hoping to move and to what part? Hope that all goes well.
im sure there are a million other Q: that i will need the answers to so you may see my name on here again, if so say hello and let us know how you got on.
Thanks again
Jaks

over50

Hi Jaks,
you will be suprised there are a lot of nurses who use this site that are either in NZ or like yourselves contemplating or going through the immigration process. I am glad that some of my experience has helped, I have only passed on what I was told from someone on this site also some months ago now.
We are going to Nelson and like you I am a nurseprobably alot older than yourself, but you have to remember that in NZ it would appear the retirement age is 70 so I still have a few years in me to carry on with what I enjoy doing.
For job searches it might be worth you looking at the District Health Board sites, if I rememmber correctly if you type into google DHB NZ it should come up with links to all the health boards in NZ. These are very informative sites and give you an insight into each districts services etc also with links to the area in general. You can also find jobs on offer on each site normally under careers I think.
Anyway I know its a long post and I apologise for this but it is giving you and any other nurses some info on how to look for employment in NZ. Video conferencing and telephone interviews seem to be way they employ from the UK so dont be daunted, do your research and be yourself and you should be okay.
Good luck.

rikandmegan

Hi Jaks, he's in the north of the South Island. To be honest, the wife and I could have gone a few years ago, the jobs were there for us but we bottled out for various reasons to be honest

We are loosing so many UK Nurses these days, on my small 11 bed unit I have two registered staff going through the process for Australia, both bloody good nurses with young families who are sick of the way the NHS has gone, who can't afford to buy a house etc, its all very sad and while its such a shame for the UK to loose them I fully understand their motivation.

Don't know if this will help, but my nephew's mom was very concerned when he said he was off, but thanks to the internet and a web cam, she 'see's' more of him now than when he lived around the corner and she is going out for a month in December

rikandmegan

When my nephew had the call, he thought it was a mate messing about and said "flip off and stop messing about Mike" and put the phone down. When they rang back he realised it was the real deal