Travel agency- London UK, international

nightingale, RN · Aug 12, 2006

I am glad this question was asked on this Forum. We do have an International Forum as well. Here is the link:

As far as traveling aboard, you would have to meet the criteria of the Foreign Country. What I have heard is in England / Ireland (where I hope to travel someday) that Nurse responsibilities are more in allaignment of CNA care. Only the Dr. can do an assessment and the Nurse does personal care and meds.

nightingale, RN · Aug 12, 2006

Oh and the salary is lower. Also, the commitment of Travel is more like a year in the UK compared to our acceptable 13 week contract in the US.

geordiegirl2 · Aug 12, 2006

I am glad this question was asked on this Forum. We do have an International Forum as well. Here is the link:
https://allnurses.com/forums/f75/
As far as traveling aboard, you would have to meet the criteria of the Foreign Country. What I have heard is in England / Ireland (where I hope to travel someday) that Nurse responsibilities are more in allaignment of CNA care. Only the Dr. can do an assessment and the Nurse does personal care and meds.

I don't think nurses responsibilities are anything like that of any CNA I've ever met, yes we take part of personal care as its part of the hollistic care we provide, its not a case of only Dr's can do assessment, we assess constantly there is just no requirement to do the daily head to toe physical assessment there is in the states.

If pts are having vascular probs, you would check pulses ect, its not a requirement in the UK as the evidence doesn't support it beyond the intial admission unless its sympton led.

Nurses work more autonomously in the UK, based on pts condition etc not DR's orders.

The committment time is more than the 13 week travel contracts you get here but International contracts for nurses coming to the US from the UK are longer too 18-24 months in most cases.

Should you choose to stay there are different contracts you could get but the previous poster is correct in that they won't pay as lucratively as travel contracts do here.

There are chains of private hospitals who will sponsor international travel and will negotiate rates individually.

MaleRNstudent21, ASN, CNA, RN · Aug 12, 2006

Wow, so basically if you want to travel aboard in england or europe you have to settle for lesser pay and be there for at least a year? So is the income there even livable? I mean can you live comfortably without feeling under middle class? It would be a big lost in away to come there. How do they ever manage to have healthcare from nurses with such bad living conditions due to cost of living? I feel that in the end london will turn as how America has turned. Not long ago American nurses were not payed as much. They only started to increase the pay when nurses became of a shortage. I think this will happend in UK someday. I think also they will probably change the educational requirements in the UK. Not so making it one branch of education like peds or adult,ect. It would be more well rounded like the US. What do you guys think? Also how is it for Clinical Nurse researchers, CRNA's,NP's or any advanced practice nurses? Is the pay a lot better?

nightingale, RN · Aug 12, 2006

I like that emphasis of Holistic Care. I had not talked to this person I knew, and we are talking in reference to "some else said" but I remember her saying Interventions were handled by the Dr. From what you are saying that does not sound accurate.

I am glad you wrote in so we can hear about it first hand, thank you for posting.

geordiegirl2 · Aug 12, 2006

Wow, so basically if you want to travel aboard in england or europe you have to settle for lesser pay and be there for at least a year? So is the income there even livable? I mean can you live comfortably without feeling under middle class? It would be a big lost in away to come there. How do they ever manage to have healthcare from nurses with such bad living conditions due to cost of living? I feel that in the end london will turn as how America has turned. Not long ago American nurses were not payed as much. They only started to increase the pay when nurses became of a shortage. I think this will happend in UK someday. I think also they will probably change the educational requirements in the UK. Not so making it one branch of education like peds or adult,ect. It would be more well rounded like the US. What do you guys think? Also how is it for Clinical Nurse researchers, CRNA's,NP's or any advanced practice nurses? Is the pay a lot better?

I've been away for a couple of years now so i'm not sure of the visa requirements but its no different to people coming here to the US from UK initially if you come with a company the length of contract is much longer than the American travel contracts.

London already pays more pay than the rest of the country because of high cost of living and has done for years, as someone who came to the States, yes the pay is more but i lived well in the UK and had 8 weeks paid vacation a year, not attached to my sick leave and didn't have to find $500 per month for health insurance for my family.

To me still i would rather be paid less and have the vacation time etc but thats just what Iwas used too.

We have structured pay within a new policy called agenda for change, Nurse Practitioners etc are paid bviously at the higher end of this.

geordiegirl2 · Aug 12, 2006

I like that emphasis of Holistic Care. I had not talked to this person I knew, and we are talking in reference to "some else said" but I remember her saying Interventions were handled by the Dr. From what you are saying that does not sound accurate.
I am glad you wrote in so we can hear about it first hand, thank you for posting.

Thank you, I do like the emphasis on hollistic care too but i have managed to build it to some degree in my practice here, I try wherever possible to work with my CNA as i fell helping bathe etc is my best way of checking skin etc.

I'm not sure what your source would describe as Interventions obviously DR's prescribe drugs etc but here at least where i work, you would need an order to advance diet, mobilise ect this is often nurse led in the UK, things like wound care as really thought of as Nurse domain so unless its a something extraordinary the dr's will just monitor.

I felt at home we worked more as a team with the docs but i have to say the longer i've been here and have developed a relationship with some of the docs we do have an understanding of what i can do and cannot.

There is not the emphasis on written orders back home but i appreciate from an insurance oint of view and litigation point of view its very necessary here.

cariad · Aug 14, 2006

in the uk, there are cna's and registered nurses who work together, and they both have their own responsibility.

nurses in the uk, are nothing like cna's, they have a lot more autonomy than the us nurses, as has been posted before me.

we are allowed to make decisions about the patients that we take care of, without asking for a doctor's order. and unlike in the us, we constantly assess our patients.....with our nursing judgement, which doesnt always need a head to toe assessment to tell us that the patient has a problem that needs attention.

we also work as a team, with the cna's to make sure that the patient has total holistic patient care.

something that I have noticed over here, is the lifting that the nurses do, something that uk nurses dont do, uk nurses know how to move and handle patients without the need for nurses to lift.

we have a yearly mandatory training in this.

we also have a yearly mandatory training in advanced basic life support, which is nothing like the basic life that is taught here on a 2 yearly basis.

uk nurses who come to the us are tied into 18/24 month contracts at a lower pay than the us nurses.

us nurses can apply through the same agency that brings nurses here, who will help with the immigration and placement over there.

nightingale, RN · Aug 14, 2006

I'm not sure what your source would describe as Interventions obviously DR's prescribe drugs etc but here at least where i work, you would need an order to advance diet, mobilise ect this is often nurse led in the UK, things like wound care as really thought of as Nurse domain so unless its a something extraordinary the dr's will just monitor.
I/QUOTE]
The Interventions stemmed more from Nurse Protocols for meds with Cardiac Ectopies (which was the facility case where I met this person telling me of her experience).
Thank you for this conversation. It has helped me to understand some of the subtle differences.

nightingale, RN · Aug 14, 2006

we also have a yearly mandatory training in advanced basic life support, which is nothing like the basic life that is taught here on a 2 yearly basis.

uk nurses who come to the us are tied into 18/24 month contracts at a lower pay than the us nurses.
us nurses can apply through the same agency that brings nurses here, who will help with the immigration and placement over there.

OH, that Advanced BLS sounds like our ACLS.

On the "Agency"; how do we cut out the middle man? Is that possible for someone going over there? I know it IS done here in the US from time to time.

I surely would not mind 8 weeks holiday with a salary I could live on.

geordiegirl2 · Aug 14, 2006

Wow, so basically if you want to travel aboard in england or europe you have to settle for lesser pay and be there for at least a year? So is the income there even livable? I mean can you live comfortably without feeling under middle class? It would be a big lost in away to come there. How do they ever manage to have healthcare from nurses with such bad living conditions due to cost of living? I feel that in the end london will turn as how America has turned. Not long ago American nurses were not payed as much. They only started to increase the pay when nurses became of a shortage. I think this will happend in UK someday. I think also they will probably change the educational requirements in the UK. Not so making it one branch of education like peds or adult,ect. It would be more well rounded like the US. What do you guys think? Also how is it for Clinical Nurse researchers, CRNA's,NP's or any advanced practice nurses? Is the pay a lot better?

Having re read your post I just wanted to comment on a few things, while nurses are not paid so well in the UK many of them live good lives not on the poverty line.

As for paying more to compensate for the shortage we have had a shortage of nurse in the UK especially London at least since the early 80's the government have just rehashed the contracts in an attempt to retain more staff, honestly there was a little more money in it but a lot of the incentives were around more paid holidays etc, which is attractive to a lot of nurses.

The nurse education was for a long time more general, thats how I was trained but it was felt to take nursing into the 21st century we should have the branches as most people do specialise and the wards in the UK are often single speciality in comparison to the floors i've worked on here, where you can get a number of different conditions, both surgical and medical and paeds, You do not look after paeds in the UK unless you are paed trained. Even ER has to have a proprtion of Pead nurse to accept kids through their doors.

I can't see them following the US back to more 'general' training as thats not how the UK practices and truthfully i felt a lot safer that way.