Assessment changes to overseas nursing applicants.

[ceridwyn]

It will be interesting if AHPRA does stick to National Law and actually assess overseas applicants on comparison to an Australian nursing degree.

Before you continue reading, this writer has had the pleasure to work alongside some excellent caring, professional nurses so far in my working life and 50% (thought long and hard about this) nursing education did not occur in Australia.

So far with Australian state and now national AHPRA nurses registration boards have given, overseas applicants registration, when it is obvious that the nurse is not been educated in the same way or subjects of an Australian nurse.

Also applicants have been given registration as general nurses and accepted when only educated in specialities IE: the UK, mental health, disability nursing (that does not exist here) and adult or childrens nursing, which are considered specialties that build on our general degree here in Australia. These registrations are tagged to only work in their areas of expertise, but an Australian mental health nurse has a general degree and post grad diploma to be called a mental health nurse, ? promotions, considered senior? (May I state again, in any defence Australian degrees and our english skills are no longer accepted in the UK)

Nurses with diplomas or two year education have also been accepted.

There had been no regular encouragement for local nurses to go into specialist areas as they have already paid out 10,000-30,000 au for an undergraduate nursing degree and have started work, why bother and cannot afford to do further study to be mental health, paediatric specialists, so we continue to need nurses specialised from overseas.

There has been a radical shortage of nurses in the past and a mighty big thankyou for these nurses for coming here and being part of the Australian nursing profession and community, my mother being one of them, over the many, many years. The shortage has now dramatically eased but due to the poor treatment of new graduate nurses there will be another shortage and crisis as the older nurses pop their clogs or find the money to retire, though we have been told the retirment age may increase up to 70 perhaps higher.

Now before the raz starts lets just see where Australian educated nurses are accepted and low and behold, nowhere these days, do not have any obstetrics and paeds for the USA. Not enough clinical in degree and not specialised enough for the UK and we have to pass IELTS for there, if considered at all with an older Australian degree.

The only place that accepts the Australian degree is New Zealand. So it seems the times have caught up with AHPRA and yes, the Australian degree is special to the people and their needs of Australia and not just any degree from any country is comparible to the nursing degree in Australia. We need to be on the same playing field AHPRA!!

Its what many nurses have been discussing for years.

So the wait begins, to see if the Australian nursing education is to continue to be ignored and pushed aside by ANMAC and APHRA or with the new criterias, the Aussie nursing degree and professional nursing in Australia, recognised as special to Australia, though I doubt it.

Australian nursing and people will always need to rely on overseas recruitment.

If there are any changes this writer would be astounded. Post education has not been flagged at this time by AHPRA to counteract any lacking education or subjects.

[ordoghaz]

Hi,

yes i imagine there will be some big changes in nursing in australia in the near future, if not happening now.

i myself, have graduated from the philippines, moved to the uk, and went through the long and hard process of getting registered in 2 states in the us, while working in the uk, only to end up wanting to go to australia. im quite interested how ahpra will decide or look into my application, i know people who have come from the same school as me, are still working on getting assessed by ahpra, and seemingly taking forever and some who are now registered nurses and working in australia.

its true nursing training in the uk is quite different, in the sense that its more focused on your specialty, less formal hours on pharmacology maybe, but then again ive always thought that uk nurses are more task oriented and rely more on exp and mentor to student kind of training/assessment. i dont know what its like in aus or in the us though.

reading through your post, i thought depending on circumstances i was actually thinking of doing further studies if successful in moving and working in aus.. i must say, it does sound like, it may be something that is not going to help me much, if i were to eventually leave australia in the future again, judging from your perspective.

nevertheless, im quite keen to learn more and experience different ways of doing things.

[lakshmishrekumar]

There is no need to worry ordoghaz,I just cross checked ceridwynGuide's, response to the subject of Australian nursing education,with google ,and I found that Australian nursing education is very much acceptable- Nurses trained in New Zealand or Australia If you hold a Comprehensive Nurse qualificationor an Applied Science Diploma you are likely to be accepted for registration if you have completed at least one year's relevant post-registration experience.

[ceridwyn]

This an old website. Nurses from Australia are no longer welcome in the UK. Our education is considered sub standard as we do not do the amount of clinical hours. We also must pass english test, even though english is our first language.

Australian educated nurses are treated same as any nurse from any other country. There is not favouritism, perhaps the pre cursor to the UK education being questioned for UK educated nurses into Australia.

http://www.nmc-uk.org/registration/joining-the-register/trained-outside-the-eu--eea/

Here is the criteria for any Australian Educated Nurse, as education took part outside of the EU and UK!

[lakshmishrekumar]

Thank you ceridwyn Guide,whats the minimum hours of clinical practice do you need in Oz cos they have asked for just 450 hrs in 3yrs. or 12 months,full time/partime for new graduates. and IELTS can hardly be a hurdle for native English Speakers

[ceridwyn]

Have you looked at the criteria? and you will be surprised how much of a hurdle IELTS is.

You need 3 months full time equivalent part time in the last 5 years, you will also need to show that you have 20hrs cpd in the years since graduate. Your school and course will need to be accreditited when you did the course, wide experience in nursing and 850 clinical in undergraduate. Your degree must be seen as AQ 7 and this will looked at by aseessors, no one can figure that out for you unless it was some whacky nursing school, such as DR Le winns school for nurses.

[ilovecass]

Good day sir @ceridwyn!

I just want to ask for your advise. I am an RN in the Philippines with 2 years paid work experience in a tertiary hospital, I was also assigned in a special area and I've recently

received my ielts score last month thanks to God I've finally got 7 in writing that makes me have combined score of 7 in all subtest. I am really confused whether I should go for CAP or should just take Diploma in HCM for a year since both programs have different visas which are tourist and student respectively. Hoping for your response, thank you!

[normge]

" ...IE: the UK, mental health, disability nursing (that does not exist here)"

How is it possible to compare something that exists, with something that doesn't? Does AHPRA decide who gets registered and who doesn't, on a fuzzy logic basis?

[ceridwyn]

Yes, possibly, before they started following national law, the notion I suppose that they felt they needed to show allegiance to the UK and they were under pressure to get nursing numbers up when there was a nursing shortage.

The same "fuzzy" logic that ANMAC apparently still follows, when there is no such thing in Australia as a specialised nursing undergrad degree.

[ceridwyn]

Well AHPRA, what I thought would happen has, watered down criteria for overseas nursing assessments that is thrown at the Australian nursing curriculum if it fits in some places then positive assessments. Does

not happen in any other country, you wanna work here as a nurse fit, our nurses curriculum completely and all criteria,if not, do more education!

Sole qualification nursing education went out on the late 80, s in Australia when it was decided that Australian nurses would be general educated and if wanted specialisation they would do post grad. How does a year of supervision fit in and make a general educated nurse?

How do these nurses feel about working with general nurses with post grad, how does it fit in with remote area, rural nursing!where most of the shortages are these days? And where you are expected to be a jack of all trades if you have the title of Registered Nurse, how does disability nuring fit in, never heard of it in Australia, Australia does not educate sole disability nurses and where do these nurses actually fit in? What is their scope of practise, who supervises a nurse that is not even educated or known by universities, another disability nurse from the UK?

On the otherhand those that have general education are being sent to some wildly expensive bridging program. How the dickens does a general educated UK nurse get from this???????? Nothing but being so much poorer than their sole educated uk immigrant colleagues.

Applicants from other countries that do not have same credentialling programs for courses and educational facilities are apparently going to have their assessments fixed up by doing one of these expensive bridging programs, some you can do online in own country? Who polices the right person is doing the course? I have seen very poor supervsion and pushed throughs in clinicals! What a bad idea.How on earth does a bridging course make those educational institutions the same status as an Australian education facility and the course same as Australian Bachelor of nursing that is accredited by ANMAC?

So what a big waste of taxpayers money with so called changes that have not really changed anything except given bridging school owners more applicants by making the very nurses that most fit the Australian nursing curriculum, the UK adult nurse, who has the experience in the specialties that are short of nurses., such as ICU and theatre.!!!!!.do this inappropriate course.

Just cannot fathom that one out!

must say, starting to agree with everything that has been said in criticism of AHPRA. Sad sad sad. Shame shame on all accounts,

The achievement and reference for the Australian Bachelor of Nursing for Australian population remains only in the eyes of the Australian educated nurse, not by AHPRA or ANMAC.

BTW since overseas assessments came to a standstill, there has been no outcry of no experienced nurses, oh woe is me what are we going to do now by hospitals or health facilities, seems the nursing shortage must be over.