Australian Nurses - Rejection due to clinical hours

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Hi All,

Hoping I could get some insight into the current NMC situation in regards to being able to register as a nurse within the UK. I am a RN in Australia with a undergraduate and post-graduate qualification.

I have recently arrived from Australia and been rejected by the NMC for registration as I did not meet the minimum number of clinical hours (under by ~350 hours). Due to my post-graduate course being online and completing my clinical hours through my workplace, they are not accepting these hours as part of my application.

Having spoken to my university, they confirmed that due to the change in assessment criteria that the NMC has imposed, that they don't believe any undergraduate course within Australia currently meets the clinical hour requirements that the NMC are asking for.

Hoping to hear from any nurses that are in a similar situation and whether there are any options moving forward? e.g could I complete a short course to count towards clinical hours? are there changes in the pipeline to re-think the registration process?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

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Hi sil07,

I am US citizen currently in the process of applying to the NMC for registration, and am working through a travel nurse agency to do so. I moved to the UK after marrying my husband who is English. My clinical hours are below their standard and I have expressed concern to the travel nurse agency I am working with that I could get rejected. The travel nurse agency have stated that the NMC is looking/working on a solution because apparently no US or Aus nurses have gotten through the process unless they have their masters. I've been told by the travel nursing agency that the NMC are looking into this and trying to find a better way of educating/evaluating the foreign nurses trying to get their registration in the UK. A solution is on the horizon, the only thing is I and this travel nursing agency have no idea how long it is going to take the NMC to find this solution...so fingers crossed they are nearing it. I really hope they are close! I hope this helps!

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Specializes in NICU.

That's good that the NMC is looking into this kind of evaluation. I personally think that they should look at American nurses who went to a school certified by the NLN or CCNE because they accredit nursing schools that are up to a high standard. There are some nursing schools that aren't certified with these agencies and though nurses can take the NCLEX, they aren't considered programs that are up to standard.

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Hey sil07

I truly share your sentiment. I am a UK born citizen, but chose to study nursing in Australia. Like yourself my qualification did not qualify due to a shortfall in mainly the theoretical hours. They did not acknowledge the online component of my course. I am in the process of also completing a masters in mental health nursing as I intended to register as both an adult and mental health nurse. However I was advised that this would not be accepted either due to the fact that my adult nursing application was unsuccessful and that my masters is delivered online.

The whole application process to the NMC has been shockingly poor and a shambles. It took a year of my time for them to come to the conclusion that my application was unsuccessful. The staff were so unhelpful and offered relatively no advice on options. I asked them if it was possible to do "stand-alone' nursing units at another Australian university to make up the hours. Even when I offered to show details of my intended study they still weren't interested in giving advice. I even had to write the IELTS despite being a British citizen previously educated in England.

The decision letter gave me a possible option of applying for APEL credit from UK universities. However, after consulting numerous UK universities I have discovered that none will accept me to study along this route as my qualification was obtained overseas and is not recognised by the NMC. The other option the NMC gave was to re-do the whole degree at a UK university.

The only realistic option I see is to redo the whole degree in the UK. As I am a UK ordinarily resident citizen and have a previous health related degree obtained in UK, I am looking to study a fast-track 2 years undergraduate UK Adult nursing degree. Failing that then I will have to do the three year course AGAIN! If you are overseas student then you may have to pay high fees and do the three year course.

Had it not been for that fact that I am a British citizen who has returned home I would not have bothered applying to UK. They need numerous complaints about the discriminatory, long-drawn incompetence of the NMC in dealing with overseas applicants.

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Hi Katiekelly2367

You mentioned that if you have a masters degree then you will be accepted to join the NMC. Is this the case even if our original qualification did not meet minimum requirements and if the masters was delivered online. Could you please let me know how your travel agency sourced this information. The time I applied I had not yet completed my masters hence I could not show them transcripts of it.

I was also informed that the NMC will be looking into revising applications from Australia/NZ, Canada & USA sometime in September. A person from the NMC applications department told me this on the phone. I do strongly believe however that they disclosed this FALSE information to try to ease the heavy complaints they are obviously receiving from applicants from these countries. It would be great if it is true though. Is your travel agency able to give you more information on how they obtained this information?

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