Jenniferoz

Hi I'm applying for the grad program in Sydney. Do you remember what they asked you in the interview? I don't know anything about WA sorry. Thanks

Hi Murta, we leave for OZ for our reccie trip on 13th April and will arrive in Sydney on 22 April. How long are you in OZ for and do you have plans to travel while your over there? Jennifer

Johndoe - where is it you think they send us on our 1st placement? Where are you getting your information from? After 7 weeks in uni, you do 6 in a hospital ward, then back to uni for 7, then back to placement for 6 - this carries on until 3rd year and the last placement is 14 weeks. It doesn't matter which ward they send you too, there are older adults, they are the vast percentage of sick people in hospital. High dependency is not an option for 1st year students as its too advanced. I understand that HDU ptients need a lot of personal care but nurses also have to know how to keep patients alive too.

Some HCA are worth their weight in gold but most will have no health/care qualifications. This is because the job description does not call for any more than a couple of standard grades if that. You do not need an NVQ or experience to get a job as a HCA in the NHS at the moment. I'm not saying that no HCA has any qualifications but they need to train the HCA they have. This costs money and the NHS does not have money. If they train the HCA they have to pay them more than minimum wage and they don’t have funds for this. The care of a patient is the responsibility of a multidisciplinary team, but I don’t see anyone asking a medic, physio, OH, dietician or any other team member to work as a HCA to gain compassion, in order to apply for a degree. I can see how this proposal could seem appealing to the public but it’s just another way of obtaining staff that will work for very little.

I'm not too sure about this at all. Compassion is not going to be taught to someone that has none, and requiring that they do 12 months HCA work before training is still not going to give someone compassion if they have none. I've met (scarily) LOADS of HCA that have ZERO compassion at all and no understanding of health, paperwork, the role of the nurse. If you are not compassionate while on training, you fail placements and in turn, fail the course. I think people don’t realize that to become a nurse you have to complete 2300 hours working as a nurse within 3 years as well as a degree. Nobody who has trained as a nurse starts their 1st job and then realizes it’s not the job they think it’s going to be, because they have been doing it since the 7th week of their 1st year of the degree. You will also find that most nursing students work (on top of 37.5 hours a week for the course) as a HCA while in training as the bursary is only £500 per month. I personally see no benefit to this at all. Just another way to get cheap, unskilled labor into hospital wards and care homes.

We paid DIAC a lot of money for our visa as i'm sure most of you did too. I've had loads of questions along the way, imagine if I expected DIAC to be on hand to answer every one> I think the fee for my visa would be considerably more!! From what I can make out, DIAC provide all the information you need - if you have further question, thats what agents are for or you could try asking the lovely people on POI

When I left the gold coast 4 years ago, i was scraping the car in the mornings!! It was sometimes (-0 to -3) Bring the warm gear

Hi Yvonne, sorry to hear of your bad experience. We are in the same boat as you. My other half is a QS in the construction industry and we have a 175. Would you mind private mailing me the name of the company? so we may tread carefully if we encounter this firm. We have not applied for any jobs yet but I have been watching trends on the job sites and 'design and build' look like an agency that seems to always have QS jobs that are well paid, also Hays construction. Please keep us updated on your progress, I would be very interested to know how you both get on with jobs and your move in general. Best of luck Jennifer

Tha Cambridge Plan.....works wonders!!

I came back from OZ in 2008 after living there for 2 years. I know I had no way of staying and looked at re-training. I started an access course in Nursing in 2009 with a guaranteed place on completion, with all graded B or above, at Uni. I'm on the home stretch now, will qualify in Aug. I was lucky that I had a guaranteed place, the application ratio is 5 applicants to 1 place. I would be wary of distance learning access courses for a couple of reasons: just because it’s a qualification recognized by the universities, doesn't mean they'll accept it and you don’t have much support. They might tell you you have access to a tutor all the time but you need peer support too, especially being an adult learner. At my university, the entry qualifications are: Higher: BBC A-Level: BC ILC: BBCC (Honours) Essential Subjects Higher English and Math’s at least Standard Grade 2 Int 2 or equivalent. GCSE English at B and GCSE Math’s at C Recommended Subjects: A science subject Additional Requirements: All applicants must satisfactorily pass a health screen and a criminal record check. A current employer or academic reference must be supplied. There should be evidence of assessed study within the last 3 years. If a lot of applicants have more than the minimum (which most do) and they are normally picked for a place first. Just because you have the minimum they are looking for, doesn't mean you'll get offered a place. The access course I did, less than half the course went onto Uni and a fraction now remains in our 3rd year. The access is not an easy course, it’s harder than the 1st year of your degree. If I was you, I would contact your university and take advice direct from them. They will realistically tell you what they want. If anyone wants further info on where I did my access/uni course PM me Good luck

I wouldn't have thought so, they'll just ask you for more.

What is a PP and an iirc?? Thanks

We had this problem with a couple of the older P60's as the writing was very faint to begin with and none existent when scanned. I took the ones I was having problems with, along with a USB stick to staples (http://www.staples.co.uk) and they scanned all of them to PDF for me for less than £1 and even emailed me a copy aswell as a copy to my USB stick.

Hi, we front loaded our PPC's so we have to activate by 2/6/2013 but you are right, whatever comes first, PCC's or medicals. Good luck

Hi Britlaw, We're going over to activate the visa in April/May time but we wont be moving over till I finish my nursing degree next Aug/Sep Still very exciting though