Rejoining the NMC (Nursing) Register

Okay, day one of my attempt to return to nursing following three years of retirement. First a wee bit background.

I retired from the NHS just over three years ago after a career as a nurse, health visitor, public health practitioner and clinical nurse manager. I enjoyed all of my roles in the NHS, some more than others and liked the vast majority of the colleagues I worked alongside and the clients I worked with. However I have also absolutely loved retirement. I did a very small amount of bank health visiting immediately following retirement but found that it interfered too much with my retirement plans and activities. And then along came coronavirus, or severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 and its consequence, covid-19 – the worlds first full blown pandemic for over 100 years.

And so I thought, what could I do? I am no longer a registered nurse or health visitor. My registration having lapsed at the end of January 2020 and I had not considered renewing it. However as a result of this pandemic it had been reported that the Government, through the Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC), intended to temporarily extend the registration of those nurses who had come off the register recently (not those struck off for malpractice or any other dodgy activities) and so it looked like my registration was due to return.

I had already contacted NHS Lothian Staff Bank a few days ago to express my interest in helping out in any way possible and today, following an email from the NMC asking if I would consider a return to the register on a temporary basis I formally put in an application to return to practice.

I was told informally that there was a streamlined process in place for applying which would take no more than 10 minutes to complete. Hmm. Three hours later I finally submitted my application.

The application process started positively enough by helpfully extracting most of my career and qualification details from an uploaded CV which I thought was an excellent start. Sadly it also mangled each and every job and qualification that I have had such that each entry had to be opened and painstakingly edited to correct the errors. Never mind, nearly done. Ah references...covering all of the last three years of employment...who gives references to retirees? After some thought and searching of contacts I contacted a professional friend, a volunteer manager and one of my most recent colleagues in the NHS to ask if they would provide a reference. The online application process then asked for a fourth referee! Somewhat daunted I gave up at that point and submitted the application with only the three referees. Hopefully that is enough. As one of my referees commented, if they ask later in this process where do I see myself in five years time, head for the door.

Day one is done and the next few days are likely to be quieter. I’ll let readers know what happens next. Bye for now.