NMC requirements - accelerated BSN program

[andrea e.]

I am a US citizen and practicing RN researching application for a UK nursing license. I have been told by Continental Travel Nurse Ltd in regards to educational requirements that my accelerated BSN program completed in 2012 will cause my application to be rejected because it was not "3 years (or equivalent)." The program was a 15 month accelerated program in which we did not take regular holidays or summer breaks. I was eligible to participate in this program because I already obtained a BA in English and completed all the prerequisite science courses required by the university.

The requirement on the NMC website is listed as such:

"The programme should be three years in length (or equivalent) and contain a minimumof 500 hours of clinical practice which must be evidenced by a transcript of trainingfrom the applicant's higher education institution."

Does any US program actually require 500 hours of clinical practice?? None that I'm aware of at this time.

I have been a practicing med-surg RN in the US for almost 3 years now and am quite discouraged by the idea that a technicality could keep me from obtaining a UK license.

If anyone has any insight, please let me know. Thank you!

[Silverdragon102, BSN]

Your training has to meet the same as what a UK nurse would have. In actual fact the UK training has over 2000 hours clinical. So only accepting 500 hours is not bad. Each NMC application is decided on as a individual case so really the answer will come from the NMC when they require your application

[babyNP., APRN]

Yes, it's true unfortunately. One poster on here met the minimum hour requirements for clinical and theory, but got denied purely because the program was compressed. It's beaurocracy at its finest, sorry.

[summerscoopy26]

When you convert your nursing course credits to credit hours you may not have enough hours per category on the application. But the NMC have lowered the requirements to 500 and most BSN programs in the US provide this sufficiently. My BSN program provided 1301 credit hours. It can be a daunting process and takes a lot of patience, but still try.

[Sahana Simonetti]

I'm a prospective nursing student (hoping to enroll in UMASS Boston's ABSN program this fall) and would like to practice in the UK in the near future as my partner will be moving there. Does anyone know if the NMC's educational/clinical hour requirements for registration have changed since this thread was last active? I reached out them but am not hopeful I'll get a response anytime soon. Hoping they've relaxed their requirements in the midst of ongoing nursing shortages. 

[babyNP., APRN]

You might want to call them up directly and ask in case you get a canned answer, but I doubt they will accept it. Things may have changed since post a few years ago, but they still make people who have a BSN taught in English take an English language competency exam as I understand it. It's so bizarre. If you are thinking of living in the UK for a long time, think hard on this because you don't want to do a US nursing degree and end up having to do a UK course as well.