Community mental health nursing

[Cobs_Ahoy]

hi folks, 

I’m wondering if anyone can help me get a sense of what community mental health nursing in Australia is like in comparison to the U.K.? I’ve found lots of PiO posts by RMNs, most of whom seemed to be going onto the wards, however as the bulk of my experience is in the community I was hoping to find a community post down under.

if you have worked as a CPN in Australia,  did you go straight into the community or was your first post on a ward?

If you have community experience in both countries, have you found any significant differences? 

Any info is much appreciated, cheers!

[ali]

Hi, 

It's a number of years since I arrived in Aus, but despite being a band 7 community nurse I started on the wards to just get my foot in the door.  I was only on the ward 6 months before securing a position in the community.  As a recruiter now - it's probably been some time since we recruited directly from the UK, in part because some of the applicants don't yet have visa's and other applicants are available in Aus and the start dates are ASAP.  It's often difficult for an employer to wait for several months for someone to arrive.  Here in WA, the applicants from UK don't always address the selection criteria (for shortlisting) which can make retrieving the information difficult from the CV alone.

The work in community can be quite pressured, where I work, our clinic has about 500 acitve clients and case loads have reached around 35.  Like anywhere "paper work" is the thing that we drown in.  For me, the biggest thing has been distance - sometimes our visits are over an hour away from the clinic.  The consumers are the same the world over, it's the processes that are often different (like starting anywhere really).  Each state has it's own MHA too - so it's good to look at the one for the state you're thinking of going to.

 

[Cobs_Ahoy]

Thanks Ali, that’s really useful information and exactly what I was after. I’m hoping to move to Queensland so will look into the specific legislation. Is a community role considered a promotion then? When I qualified I did my band 5 preceptorship in the community, although that was unusual at the time and I know most nurses did a stint on the wards first. 
 

Did you find it easy to get back to your equivalent band 7 position once you were practicing out there? I’m not averse to going onto the wards to get my foot in the door, but my biggest wobble is whether I am going to struggle to make the same progress in Australia - I am in the middle of completing a masters that would lead to band 8 post in a few years (As a clinician rather than management), are you able to shed any light on what the equivalent in Australia would be? I have seen adverts for ‘clinical nurse consultants’ but couldn’t really get a sense of what the role involved and what qualifications/experience the post requires. 

[ali]

4 hours ago, Cobs_Ahoy said:

Thanks Ali, that’s really useful information and exactly what I was after. I’m hoping to move to Queensland so will look into the specific legislation. Is a community role considered a promotion then? When I qualified I did my band 5 preceptorship in the community, although that was unusual at the time and I know most nurses did a stint on the wards first. 
 

Did you find it easy to get back to your equivalent band 7 position once you were practicing out there? I’m not averse to going onto the wards to get my foot in the door, but my biggest wobble is whether I am going to struggle to make the same progress in Australia - I am in the middle of completing a masters that would lead to band 8 post in a few years (As a clinician rather than management), are you able to shed any light on what the equivalent in Australia would be? I have seen adverts for ‘clinical nurse consultants’ but couldn’t really get a sense of what the role involved and what qualifications/experience the post requires. 

Here in WA the majority of community posts will be level 2 Clinical Nurse (CN), there's usually a Clinical nurse specialist or manger (Senior Registered Nurse (SRN) Level 3) and in my organisation a team leader above that.  I got into an acting Level 3 within 18 months through choice as there were other jobs outside of the service I worked that came up.  We have CN's who have masters - not sure of the Consultant post - we have nurse practitioners but that is a specific course.

[Cobs_Ahoy]

Ahhhh ok, that gives a bit of clarity to some of the jobs I’ve seen advertised, thanks.

[ali]

When you're ready to apply for jobs - if there's a selection criteria drop me a line, i'll be happy to give you some pointers about how to address it.

[Cobs_Ahoy]

That’s really good of you Ali, much appreciated and I will definitely take you up on that when I’m in the position to apply.