 Hi everyone and welcome back to another vlog. My name is Claire and I'm a newly qualified general practice nurse and I've had a haircut. Cut and colour. So today's video is all about getting into nursing if you have no experience whatsoever. I have to really apologise for the lighting as well. The sun is quite bright behind the window and it's coming through my blinds so it might just go up and down a little bit. I do apologise for this. So first things first, let's just get straight to the point. If you've got no experience whatsoever in healthcare, care work, anything like that, you can absolutely go into nursing. Don't sweat it, you can do it. So nursing is a degree only sort of qualification now. It used to be diploma course and you could get on it that way through MVQs and things like that. But it is a degree only course. There's also apprenticeships and stuff like that but just because of the level of profession it is now, you do need A levels or an equivalent to an A level so I didn't have any A levels. My GCSEs were poor, all of that jazz so I had to put everything in place to get to where I am so I had to do the equivalent GCSE so I did numeracy and literacy, sort of level 2. Then I went on and I did my access course, I did my MVQ2 and MVQ3 as well and health and social care. I probably did it a long winded way but that's just the way I did it back then. There are again different routes. You can become a nursing apprentice. There's apprenticeships that you can go on so you'll get the job and they'll train you on the job kind of thing. You can go through open university now. You can do the nursing associate route as well so you will train for two years and then you'll become a band four nursing associates. I've heard that you can go up to a band five as well, a nursing associate which is really interesting. I'm not sure how that works. I'm sorry guys but yes you can do that as well. However if you have no work experience at all in working in health care and you want to go into nursing and you're not too sure what or where to go or where to get started a really good thing to do is all around places all your local care homes or nursing homes have a look online as well at some like volunteering sort of roles. Ask if you can go in and do a shadow shift and just observe things happening and I don't know what it's gonna be like with COVID and stuff like that now whether they'll allow you to do that but it's really good to get in there and get like a little bit of an insight to what's gonna be involved on the nursing course and what nursing involves in general as well because I think people that haven't had that background before they can be a little bit shocked when they go onto the placement or into the area and they have to clean up things like feces urine, blood, vomit and they're just like whoa I did not realize I was gonna be dealing with this so yeah it can be a little bit of a shock for some people so just to prepare you for that it's good to get some experience. I always rave about nursing homes because that's where I fell in love with nursing so nursing homes is a really really good start I think really good to get the foundations of nursing in there and get some skills along the way. Another good area to go into as well is if you ring up your local hospices as well because that's a really lovely area and a great place to see that sort of end-alive palliative care process and see what sort of nursing skills are involved in that sort of process because at some point in your career you will probably have to deal with that sort of thing so that's a really good area to go in and get some experience as well and insight. Also you could become a dementia friend so this could be someone that does voluntary sort of experience at social clubs and things like that that are run especially for those people that have dementia they are really really good I did this when I was up in Birmingham it was called the Buds scheme and it was really really nice to do that and go and interact with people and it was just lovely the way it was run was fantastic and it was just nice to gain those sort of different communication styles as well and how to interact with someone that does have dementia and yeah it's definitely a good foundation for you as a nurse to do. So if you want to become a nurse and you have the qualifications and you want to do the degree route you literally just have to apply via UCAS so UCAS is a website that will store all of your information and your application and your personal statement and everything to apply for nursing and other courses as well it's just the application process as a whole for universities but yes go on to UCAS have a look at nursing courses in your area think about what sort of university you want to go to which one you would prefer to go to but when you're thinking about choosing your university make sure you're thinking okay if I'm going to that university where am I going to be placed what hospitals am I going to go to thinking about that and actually getting there for seven o'clock in the morning or if you're coming back late at night thinking about those little things will really help you decide which university to go to as well and so yeah so if you've got everything you need your qualifications and all that just get applying on UCAS and go for it. However if you haven't got those qualifications then you need to get those qualifications to be able to get into university like I said at the start of the video and you'll be well away and don't think oh it's going to take me years and blah blah blah I qualified at 36 and do you know what it was the best thing I ever did I did the longer route round and got all my qualifications and experience first and then built it bit by bit that way but just pick the route for you that's going to work for you and don't think about the time it's going to take because that time is going to fly past anyway whether you do it or not have a look again online at different roles that you can do so the nursing apprenticeships nursing associate roles have a look because they will be advertised on job sites as well so have a look at those and what you need to get through to that process and that'll just give you an idea of where you want to aim for and if you've got the qualifications and experience and whatever they're asking for and to apply for that sort of job now if that's the other route that you want to take I will post some links below to all the different routes and how to sort of go through them and that'll just give you a bit more understanding hopefully on how to apply and what to do and what's expected of you and what's needed and all that jazz and then you can go from there and just build on it it's better that you do that because if I sit here talking to you for hours and hours about the different routes the different qualifications the different things you need to do get bored guys so honestly follow the links have a look and just figure out where you want to go and which route you want to take and just remember it's not about the destination it's about the journey and the experience so until next time I'll see you later and have a great day