Nursing Associate & Registered Nursing Apprenticeship

Introduction

Hello everyone. My name is Amelia, I am a registered nurse associate and a current student nurse. I am 32 years old and I have two children. So for me, I have always been fascinated with healthcare, hospitals, and things like that, so back in 2017, I applied for a healthcare assistant role at my local hospital, and I got the role. However, there wasn't quite enough room for progression, so after about a year there, I had kind of learned what I could from that department. And so I found a job being advertised in a GP surgery and I applied for it and I got the job, thankfully. I've been there for four years now. In my first year at the surgery, I spent the time upskilling, learning how to do vaccinations and things like that, that I didn't previously know how to do from the hospital. And then I came across the trainee nursing associate apprenticeship, which originally I was looking at courses to become a band three healthcare assistant, but when I saw this, it was a band four role, I thought, well, if I can skip a band, then why not?

So I applied to the Open University. It was a two-year foundation degree and the course was funded so I didn't have to have any tuition fees or anything like that. And because it was an apprenticeship, I also got a full wage throughout my training meaning I didn't have to take out any student loans or bursaries. It was just perfect for me with the children and the house.  

What was attractive about becoming a nursing associate?

Nursing associates are generically trained across all four fields of nursing. So you're trained in paediatrics, mental health, learning disability and adult nursing. It covers everything, which I thought was brilliant because it opened so many doors career-wise. And I kind of had a feeling that I might have wanted to go on and become a nurse, but I wasn't 100% sure at the time. I also didn't want to commit to the registered nurse degree apprenticeship because that was four years long and I didn't know how I was going to get on if I'm honest. I didn't know if I was going to pass, and I didn't know if I was good enough to do university-level work because I didn't go to university when I was younger. And also I figured if I was going to then do there's like a conversion top-up course to become a nurse, I figured if I was going to go on to that next step, at least I would have those placement experiences in all four fields so I could work out which field of nursing I wanted to go into.

How many hours were you studying versus on placement?

I had to do 30 hours a week and 24 of those hours were practice hours. So I was clinical based and then six of those hours were study hours. Now, I must admit, I did go over the 6 hours. It's very easily done, but you kind of get out what you put in with this kind of things. So I wanted to do well, so I put in the work basically. So I qualified as a registered nurse associate in April this year. And because I'd done it with the Open University, which again was great because it allowed me to do it from home, around my children, around work, around everything.

When did you start thinking about doing the top-up degree?

It was around April time that I started talking to the university about doing the top-up course and I had my interview for that in April as well and found out pretty quickly afterwards that I had got a place. So then I had to go through all the paperwork and everything and I started that course in October. It's nicknamed a top-up course, but it's the Registered Nurse Degree apprenticeship. And what they do is a credit transfer from your nurse associate training onto the Bachelor of Science registered Nurse degree apprenticeship course. It takes the total down from four years to 20 months. I started in October, so it should be April, or May sort of time, 2024, that I qualify as a Registered Nurse.

And how are you finding it now? How do you balance home life, studying and sort of everything like that?

It is difficult at times, but I think as long as you're organis

ed and you've got self-discipline, you can do it. As I said, obviously, I did my nursing associate training through the pandemic, so we had school closures to deal with. We had lots of placement changes as well. It was hard work, but it was so worth it. And my graduation was one of the proudest days of my life and I'm just so happy that I get to do it again in a couple of years’ time.