Moving soon (I hope!)

Hello, everybody! My name is Heidi. I'm currently a Registered Nurse living in Vermont. I fulfilled a lifelong dream of visiting London last year, and instantly fell in love. I always knew I wanted to move to the UK, but that short trip really sold it for me. About six years ago I was looking into moving, but never really committed. But during my trip to London I met a very nice man who is now my long-distance partner, and suddenly I have much more incentive to get going! I explored multiple routes to make the dream happen. I perused a few posts here, and noticed others seem to have met with the same frustration re: difficulty with visas. But luckily I'm a nurse with a Bachelor's degree so I was able to find an agency who was more than willing to help me with the licensing process and who will provide me with a work visa once that's all settled. I wanted to go directly through the NHS since I know they're struggling in part because of agency workers, but I found them unresponsive compared to six years ago when I first started researching this. The agency was incredibly responsive and more than willing to help guide me through the whole process (it's almost like there's a nursing shortage and they stand to profit from it! ;P). I've passed the first hurdle for getting my UK nursing license, and have a bit of a ways to go, but recruiter is projecting an arrival date of around May/June--April at the earliest.

I have lived overseas in the past. When I was 7 my family moved to Spain where we lived for five years. We moved to Japan after that and stayed there for four, so I'm quite accustomed to moving and adapting to very different places. I've just never done it on my own before!

It's nice to be here and I hope I get a lot from this group. Thanks for having me!

Hi Heidi,

I'm a Masshole born,bred and trained RN . Lived in Mass all my life until moving here to Scotland in 1999. Back then I went through an agency,which no longer exists. They were super helpful in helping me get my UK registration and work permit..
Back then it was much easier than it is these days..
For me it was heritage.. My gran was born in Scotland and went to Mass when she was a child. It had always been a life long dream of mine to live and work here..
I visited several times on holiday and made the decision to try moving and living here.
I worked my way up the immigration ladder and have now had dual citizenship for many years.
That too is much harder and much,much more expensive now than it was then.
Wish you lots of luck and WELCOME.

Welcome nurseheidi.....sounds like you are an old DoDDS student. I'm a retired DoDDS teacher (UK/Germany/Okinawa,Japan). My step-daughter here is 25 and a nurse in Leeds. Is it possible to live these days in London on a nurse's NHS salary? I know my daughter looked into working at a non-NHS hospital that paid considerably more.

Agencies? Uh oh!!

Are they a registered Tier 2 General sponsor? If not, they would need to become one, but there is a catch, because you cannot be sponsored for agency work!

List of sponsors:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/493934/2016-01-21_Tier_2_5_Register_of_Sponsors.pdf

Link about no agency work:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/477879/Tier_2_Policy_Guidance_11_2015.pdf

Page 25:
"Your sponsor can only assign a Certificate of Sponsorship to you if they have full responsibility for deciding the duties, functions and outcomes or outputs of the job shown on the Certificate of Sponsorship Checking system. Where you are carrying out
work for a third party on your sponsor’s behalf, they must be contracted by your sponsor to provide a time-bound service or project on your sponsor’s behalf. This means a service or project which has a specific end date,after which it will have ended or the service provided will no longer be operated by your sponsor or anyone else.You must not be:
An agency worker, hired to a third party to fill a position with them, whether temporary or permanent, regardless of any contract between your sponsor and any employment agency or employment business;"

Try the NHS again...?

Thanks for the welcome!

Kaylesh,

I've only been in New England a bit (I'm originally a Californian), but I do like it here.
I feel like it was definitely easier to become a nurse even just six years ago when I first looked into this. They're really clamping down. :/ It's doing them a disservice when they desperately need nurses. But this agency I'm working with has their own flats they have set aside for nurses and subsidize the cost immensely so that London living is very affordable. They also pay slightly more than NHS going pay.

Mandolin,
Yes! I'm a former DODEA kid. DGF in Rota, Spain and Kinnick Middle and High School in Yokosuka, Japan. Loved DODEA schools. The teachers were the best I've had!

Physicskate: Hmmm... Maybe that's certain agencies, but nurse agencies are a very common way to get work in the UK and elsewhere. The NHS is actually trying to offset the costs of agency nurses because it's a big part of their expenses. But, as I said, when the agency is willing to help you and the NHS isn't, it's not really a matter of choice anymore. The agency I work for places hundreds of foreign nurses all over the UK, and they do very well.