Qualifications to Become a Registered Nurse in the United Kingdom

Okay in this post I'm going to give you an idea of the qualifications which are necessary to register as a Nurse in the UK. I'm not going to put tons of information but only the important ones if you have any problem please comment down below or contact me via my Facebook account. Let's start with the required qualifications. 

First of all, to become a registered nurse in any country you will need an education background in Nursing from a certified institute. A common misinformation about UK Nursing is that some people think they need a Degree in Nursing to apply for the registration but it's not true. If you have a Diploma in Nursing it is enough to start the process. After acquiring a Degree Or Diploma through a professional institute you have to get the Nursing Council Registration. This could be a bit tricky because if you get your diploma from a private institution you will have to get the registration from the PHSRC (Private Health Service Regulatory Council) and if you have a Degree or Diploma From a government Nursing School or from a University then you have to get the Nursing registration from the SLNC( Sri Lanka Nursing Council).

The next requirement is Clinical Experience as a nurse in a reputed hospital. You will need at least one year of experience in any area of nursing whether it could be surgical nursing medical nursing or emergency nursing it doesn't matter as long as you have at least one year of experience in a government setup or private setup. when you apply for a job in the UK you can apply for the specific nursing section of your liking that's no problem. 

English Proficiency is an essential requirement for UK Nursing because we are going to work in an English language-based environment. In the Present there are mainly two ways to acquire this requirement. I will talk about these tests in detail in this blog in a separate post because there is so much to inform.

1. IELTS exam (International English Language Testing System)

           - you need to get listening 7, reading 7, speaking 7, and writing 6.5.

                - with the new rules change in 2023 now you can combine two results too but you should not                   get below 6.5 in any aspect of two sittings.

2. OET exam (Occupational English Test)

            - you need to get 350 or more for listening, speaking, and reading and at least 300 for writing.

                - and results can be combined in this too.

Then finally you have to pass NMC competency tests in order to complete your registration. There are two tests, namely CBT and the OSCE exams, during this process that you will have to complete which I will discuss in this blog with more detail in the future. 

Apart from these major requirements, it is nice to have some other professional qualifications as well. you will not need them in order to get the registration but when you a facing interviews is nice to have something always up your sleeves. For example, if you have any qualifications in BLS( Basic Life Support), or ALS (Advance Life Support) these things will give you a little bit of an edge to you.

So in the next post, I will discuss the Steps that you need to complete in the Registration process giving you an idea about the regulatory body of nursing in the UK as well. Be sure to subscribe to my blog so that you will get notifications when I post new things and there is a lot coming up.

Cheers,

Hasitha Senarathna