Nursing apprenticeship

[Nursingadvice]

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I am late 30’s and feel massively unsettled. I seem to have developed ambition which was unfortunately lacking in my younger years and now feel like I need a career.

I currrently work in the NHS as a band 4 In the health visiting team. I have not been in the NHS for very long. I am really thinking about progression but the only progression for me in my current role is nursing and I can not afford uni nor can I manage the placements and shift work with childcare.

I know there’s are nursing degree apprenticeships which would at least solve the money issues, but does anybody know if it is in anyway possible to do a nursing degree whilst keeping my current job and 9-5 hours. I know I’d obviously still need to go on placements for experience as my current job would not expose me to the medical side of things.

I have no idea who at work I could talk to about this as it’s unheard of. Band 5 up to 6 is common but band 4s just stay put or leave.

How would you do the placements if you don’t have the childcare?

I think I vaguely remember one student who did an apprenticeship but I think her work had to agree to it or second her or something.

I don’t know how the placements would work on an apprenticeship

As in, I don’t know if there would be the same amount of placement hours as a uni degree route

I am doing this currently. Feel free to PM me.

No you can’t stay in your current role.

An apprenticeship is a mix of on/off the job training and the study you do as part of the degree. You need to be able to show, at the end of the apprenticeship, that you are competent in the role. The degree will only give you ‘knowledge and theory’. You need to be doing the nursing role alongside it.

Apprenticeship funding rules state that you have to do 30 hours a week.

Think of it as a ‘job with training and a degree attached’.

Hi OP, there are several types of apprenticeship programmes in nursing at the moment- which one are you specifically looking at? TNA? RDNA? Which country are you based in?

I work in NHS, admin though, and I am currently doing a Business Administration apprenticeship. I have a ‘study day’ one day a week and do my normal job the remaining 4 days. Speak to your Learning and Development department. There will be info on your Trust’s staff intranet page.

The Trust I work for do a Nursing Associate apprenticeship in partnership with our city’s main university. Your best starting point is contacting your Trust’s education or apprenticeship lead for more information and options.

That’s not true you can complete the RNDA in a health visiting setting. OP’s Trust may not offer it but it’s definitely possible.

Get a job as an HCA at a GP surgery. Get a year of experience under your belt. Then apply for the nursing associate training in primary care. It's a 2 year course. You will do your training during GP surgery hours, i.e. Monday to Friday between 8am - 6pm. You will be paid your HCA salary throughout training. Once your training is complete, you will be a qualified nurse associate and you will be able to be employed as that in GP surgeries. Work at that level for a while and then if you want to you can get on to registered nurse training which is reduced in length for nurse associates.
Also, look up Registered Nurse Degree Apprenticeship. It's a way in to nurse training without the exorbitant university fees/debt.

Sorry should add - for children’s nursing. Obviously wouldn’t be able to do adult, MH or LD in that setting.

Have you looked at the range of apprenticeships offered by the NHS? There are apprenticeships in other patient facing roles apart from nursing where the placements, and the final career, have hours that fit in better with family life. Look at the NHS jobs site.

I don't know how you'd do the hundreds of unpaid hours "work" whilst studying nursing whilst holding down a full time job.

I used to be a Band 4, but with private work would earn equivalent to band 6. Had to put the hours in and I know that's not possible in a lot of jobs.

The trust I work for are currently recruiting apprentices for OT, podiatry and physio. The apprentices have to complete placements but the roles tend to be more 9 - 5.
might be worth having a look into.

@Cheshiresun the apprenticeship programmes combine you working and studying within your full time hours, rather than studying and then working the full time job on top. Time at college or university (depending on what programme you undertake) is included in your hours.

Obviously there will be assignments on top of this, and the programmes aren't brilliantly paid

My current role comes under nursing though, just community based rather than acute.

RDNA, in England.
Wouldn’t want to do the nursing associate as that qualifies you for a band 4 role, which I’m already doing.

My trust has advertised an apprentice OT too but I don’t meet the entry requirements.

if u did nursing I would stay in health visiting once qualified so the hours would still be normal office hours.

I don’t want to do nursing associate as I’m already working at band 4, it seems a bit of a waste.

What entry requirements are you needing? I want to do a radiography apprenticeship but don't have the required grades so am doing a years access to higher education course beforehand, am doing distance learning and juggling my full time band 3 job. Government funded too...

I think for the nursing apprenticeship I’d meet the entry requirements. I could be wrong though.

I was referring to the OT one (which I’m not actually interested in doing anyway) but that required science qualifications and experience.

If OP is in an ‘Associate’ role, she could do an apprenticeship at that level (5), but if that level of role doesn’t give her the opportunity to cover all the knowledge, skills and behaviours of a nursing role (regardless of the setting) then she can’t prove competence for a level 6 degree apprenticeship.

You can use a level 5 apprenticeship to progress to a level 6 and it can reduce the length of time on the degree apprenticeship (L6).

@Lucyccfc68 the only qualification I have is a level 3.

What you have stated was my concern, I wouldn’t be able to do the apprenticeship in my current role as it doesn’t give the opportunities for practice needed, but from what I can gather there would still be some placements in other departments.

Dc is currently doing training. 25% left within 6 months due to childcare issues.
Dc does 1 day at uni per week plus 30 hours on ward 12 hour shifts (was moved as per hospital policy from ward originally worked on) and then does three four week placements a year (gets about 3 weeks notice sometimes less). There's lots of changes, they even swapped venue for university to a different city so yhe 30min trip is now over an hour. I think that mature students with nhs experience are the ones this program should be attracting but anecdotal this seems to be the ones that are being put off by the inflexibility of yhe course.
I think a lot of your questions will be trust specific as to how they will accommodate you. If you cant could you see if a different area of work would do apprenticeships physio, ot etc? Best of luck.

In our trust this would be managed through the learning and development team- does your trust have one to speak to? Most areas are having a big push on apprentice recruitment.

Alternatively, can you discuss this with whichever your local university covers your area? They should at least be able to outline how the placement aspect would work.

It also seems that the Open University offer an RDNA, including community providers- may be worth contacting them to find out more

Sorry, I'm acute trust based so can't answer how this is working in primary care

Hope you're able to find out the answers without too much stress OP

So if your current place of work was advertising an apprenticeship you could do it through them and some of the placement hours may be like your current role

However other advertised apprenticeships have their own planned out work placements already attached through their trusts and budgets, so there isn't usually scope to choose a placement elsewhere. It's different because It's not like a nursing degree where you are a supernumerary student and there is sometimes elective placements. It's a job role funded by a departments budget.

All the best with your next steps :)