USA trained nurses who have registered with the NMC as a mental health nurse

letina · Oct 5, 2011

Hi,

Nursing education and qualifications in the UK are very different to how nurses are educated in the US.

A mental health nurse in the UK is an RMN and a general nurse is an RGN (maybe you could google those to understand the differences between the two.

To work in mental health in the UK, a general nurse won't cut it. You have to go the RMN route and be a specialist in psych nursing.

Similarly, a UK RMN cannot work as an RN in the US unless the RMN has evidence on their nursing school transcript to demonstrate they did the minimum number of hours (both theory and practice) in med/surg, OB, pediatric and psych during their training.

Hope that answers your question somewhat, but google those 2 things (RMN and RGN) and see if that helps.

:)

The RMN course consists of 18 months generalist training and 18 months specialising in psych.

babyNP., APRN · Oct 6, 2011

Somebody else had asked this awhile back and the result was that they weren't allowed to practice. You should look into if you can still be licensed as a general adult nurse (as this is what the US training would train you for) and then work in psych anyway. I learned that even though I would only be eligible for an adult license, I can still work in NICU. Have you asked the NMC about your post-grad degree in mental health psych? Does your state board license you as a NP in psych?

The hours thing is what has been getting a lot of people though...US nurses obviously don't have the required amounts that they write down, but some have managed to get by anyway. I'm in the middle of my application process and I'm looking into RN refresher courses to get more clinical hours if this doesn't pan out...