A&E Nurse

First things first and in case you didn't know...

An A&E, Accident and Emergency or ED (Emergency Department) Nurse works in hospitals, providing medical care to patients suffering from severe (although not always) injuries and acute illnesses. Their duties include taking patients’ vital signs, examining them and observing their physical condition, administering medication and performing procedures. However, this is the tip of the iceberg… they’re there to do whatever is needed and whatever is necessary.

A Paediatric Nurse provides care specifically for children & young people and this can be carried in in various different hospital departments, including A & E.

CHECK OUT SALLY'S PODCAST

Key skills/talents

Knowledge of medicine and (of course), in depth knowledge of how the body works
Excellent interpersonal skills
Strong communication skills, including being clear and concise under pressure
Excellent decision-making skills - i.e. life and death (potential) situations.
Excellent time management and AMAZING multitasking abilities… Because again talking about life-saving activity
Resilience and the ability stay calm when tackling high-pressure situations
Empathy and diplomacy when dealing with (very often, stressed) patients and pressured colleagues
Sensitivity and understanding, particularly when someone is in acute or severe pain
Enjoy working with other people - colleagues and patients. If you don’t generally like people, this isn’t the role for you.
Willingness to keep learning… Science is always evolving.
To be flexible and open to change - no 2 days will be the same in A&E.
To be able to use a computer and the main software packages competently in order to maintain patient records effectively and accurately

Qualifications required

Entry requirements for both nursing positions would be through a university nursing degree, although if you were looking to specialise in children nursing, there are specific degree courses available to you.

The following link from the NHS website shows their course finder, which allows you to look for the nursing degree course best applicable to your geographic area and the role you are most interested in: https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/career-planning/course-finder?field_leading_to_a_career_in_tid=186&field_region_tid=All&field_qualification_type_tid=All&field_study_mode_tid=All&items_per_page=25

To become a Children's Nurse, you can do a degree in children's nursing approved by the Nursing and Midwifery Council. A full-time course usually take 3 years: https://www.nmc.org.uk/education/approved-programmes

A&E Nurses must have completed an undergraduate nursing degree (BSc) in order to practise in the UK. Each university operates roughly the same, however, some universities will have their own unique entry requirements, i.e:

120 UCAS tariff points from A/AS Level.
Qualifications, personal statement, and references all form part of the selection criteria for this course.
Applicants must demonstrate evidence of literacy, numeracy, and IT skills in line with the Nursing and Midwifery Council requirements.
Applicants must normally have evidence of formal study within the last five years. However, we are sometimes able to waive this requirement if a candidate has a significant amount of professional experience in a relevant field, for example healthcare, social care, or education.
You must provide evidence of having been in general education for a minimum of ten years.

Rules and regs

We’re talking about the NHS, so as you can imagine, there are a lot of rules, regs and codes of conduct that must be strictly adhered to: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5e5673d9d3bf7f06f2e953ab/Code_of_Conduct_update__final.pdf

For a Children’s Nurse, the Nursing & Midwifery Council have a document relating to the specific standards of competence for nurses: https://www.nmc.org.uk/globalassets/sitedocuments/standards/nmc-standards-for-competence-for-registered-nurses.pdf

As a nurse you are legally bound by a Duty of Care. and The Royal College of Nursing lists all the requisite information relating to this, as well as a vast amount of information regarding your (general) role as a nurse: https://www.rcn.org.uk/Get-Help/RCN-advice

The UK Government's Department of Health & Social Care also publishes the ‘Regulating healthcare professionals, protecting the public’ document, which gives a lot of further information relating to the legal framework surrounding anyone working within the health and social care sector: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/607daac6d3bf7f0132941916/Regulating_healthcare_professionals__protecting_the_public.pdf

As an Agency Nurse (further discussed below), Sally has needed to sort and pay for her own indemnity and sick pay/income protection insurance. These two links give some good intel on what this means/looks like:

Remuneration framework

A newly qualified A&E Nurse has a starting salary of around £24,907 (very specific, we know), but this can rise to approx. £49,866.

A Paediatric nurse's salary is between £28k and £43k.

A couple of good pay grade site links are:

How to get started

As we have said, entry requirements for nursing degree courses can vary slightly, because each university sets its own entry criteria. However, you are likely to need at least two (usually three) A-levels or equivalent qualifications at level 3, such as a T level or BTECs, plus supporting GCSEs including English, maths and a science. Contact your chosen universities directly to find out whether qualifications equivalent to A-levels or GCSEs are acceptable and for more specific information regarding their entry requirements.

Courses often specify preferred or essential A-level or equivalent subjects, such as one science (for example biology), or a social science (for example psychology). Some universities offer courses with a foundation year for those without the necessary entry qualifications. So there is always hope.

As previously stated, the NHS has details of where you can study, along with a list of speciality nurse training degrees available via the following link: https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/career-planning/course-finder

If, however, you prefer to become a nurse via a registered nurse degree (RNDA) apprenticeship, this is available and can be achieved via part time study and other flexible routes: https://www5.open.ac.uk/business/develop-your-workforce/registered-nurse

Vacancies for RNDA can be found via the NHS jobs website, as well as the Government apprenticeship website. An example of an RNDA job is here: https://beta.jobs.nhs.uk/candidate/jobadvert/C9421-23-0387

Associations or official bodies to register with

All nurses can apply to join the Royal College of Nursing, which is the world’s largest nursing union & professional body: https://www.rcn.org.uk

As a paediatric nurse, you could also look to register with the Nursing & Midwifery Council, who are the nursing and midwifery regulator for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland: https://www.nmc.org.uk/registration/joining-the-register

The RCNi is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Royal College of Nursing and it's purpose is to be a lifelong learning partner for nurses, nursing students, nursing support workers and healthcare staff. They publish continuing professional development (CPD) material, hold events for nurses and much more: https://rcni.com/about-us

Job site links

Job opportunities are listed predominantly on the NHS job site: https://www.nhsjobs.com/job_list/s1, and indeed on the RCNI website: https://www.rcninursingjobs.co.uk

However, websites such as Indeed and Reed also list nursing jobs:

https://uk.indeed.com/q-nurse-advertisement-jobs.html?vjk=4d896b0ebe2f03f3

https://www.reed.co.uk/jobs/nurse-jobs

GOV.UK has some information on professional development, as an FYI: https://www.gov.uk/approved-driving-instructor-adi-development

Progression pathway

Progression is very much down to you and what your career aspirations are. Some people naturally move towards more supervising/managerial roles, which Sally did; whereas others might simply look to specialise in a specific area such as neo-natal, cancer care etc.

The job of any nurse offers a challenging, yet rewarding career and can act as a stepping stone to a range of other careers, including Ward Manager, Nurse Consultant or Nurse Practitioner, even a director of nursing.

The Royal College of Nursing has a huge catalogue of resources to help you figure out and decide on your next step in nursing, including courses to develop your skillset: https://www.rcn.org.uk/Professional-Development/Your-career/Nurse/Career-Crossroads/Career-Progression

This guide from Oxford University offers some pretty good intel on (nursing) career pathways: https://www.ouh.nhs.uk/working-for-us/sectors/nursing-midwifery/documents/career-pathways.pdf

Sally has very recently moved into Agency Nursing, which means that even though she still physically works ‘in’ the NHS and in NHS hospitals, she is contracted by 4 or 5 different private agencies to do those shifts, and is paid by them for those shifts.

She states in the chat that she’s done this to earn more money and have greater control over her work-life balance. She believes that she can now pick and choose what shifts she works, which departments she works in, and even which hospitals/locations she works in. And so far she hasn't looked back.

There are pros and cons to this (non-NHS) career shift, as these links state really well: