Nursing in England

The Ugly Band levels and Coloured Scrubs Nurses in the National Health System (NHS) start as a band 5 nurse, the entry level for any newly qualified nurse. As you gain experience, you become a band 6 nurse which includes being in charge of the department. Also known as a junior sister. Followed by being… Read more: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (of the NHS)

The trials and tribulations of finding my new role within the National Health Service (NHS) and the things I learned along the way.

Part two of two: Closing the loop, the continuation piece of a patient’s journey with a mental health crisis in an English Emergency Department. Part one provides additional background and the start of patient’s journey. After a decade of emergency room nursing in the USA, the compare-and-contrast of working as a nurse in England this… Read more: Mental Health Care in an English A&E

Mental Health Part One of Two: A glimpse of mental health treatment in England’s Emergency Department from an American nurse’s point of view.

I used to look out into a spacious waiting room with an enclosed Chihuly art piece tucked in the corner. At times it was bursting with ill children waiting to be seen, all under my supervision. I would run through my head, recalibrating who was sickest, who was in need of analgesia, or who needed… Read more: My new normal

Mental capacity is the ability to make and communicate our own decisions. In the United States healthcare setting mental capacity is not a phrase we often hear. The term is mostly applied to legal proceeding. But in England is it is part of the initial Accidents & Emergency (A&E) aka Emergency Department assessment and our… Read more: Mental Capacity-The Voice of Your Patient

Disclosure: This is a reflective piece on the manner in which a pediatric mental health crisis is being handled by two different health systems in two parts of the world. The statements written here are my own personal opinions, and not reflective of the hospitals that have employed me. Mental health is a complex subject… Read more: Restraining Children- a new perspective

1. A&E (Accidents and Emergency) not ER/ED 2. Medication administration: no Pyxis or pharmacy. You prepare all your own medication after searching for it in the cupboard. This includes high alert medications such as insulin or norepinephrine infusions 3. Triage is the only time computer documentation is done. Everything else is paper charting. However, there… Read more: 10 Differences in the A&E versus ER

-By Kyla Payne I was asked if I was interested in becoming an ENP (Emergency Nurse Practitioner)  trainee at my local hospital. Absolutely! It meant being more autonomous, seeing,  treating, and discharging my own patients, on the job type training, and a pay raise to a  band 6!   ENPs are like Nurse Practitioners in the… Read more: US RN to UK Emergency Nurse Practitioner

Becoming a nurse in the UK is not a clear path. It can take many different routes. I see nursing through the prism of my training. A similar view but slightly distorted, with the light bent I see it a new.  Through conversations with staff members and through my own induction training I am learning… Read more: Not to teach you to suck egg…

The following are four pieces of writing, three by fellow American nurses and one by a Canadian nurse. We have all had different experiences but the core feelings are the same. At the start… by Rachel Cutshall I very clearly remember the day the pandemic became real for me. In theatre (the main operating room),… Read more: Four nurses, Four Perspectives: Nursing in the time of COVID-19

COVID vaccine

First month working as nurse in the UK is done! Looking forward continuing to learn about the British way of nursing.

Processing the first two weeks at the A&E

Questions to be answered about British way of nursing