Who doesn’t love crowds, cheers and fame? Almost everyone. But Emily was completely different from that. She was a vocalist, she sang in front of thousands of audience, she got the direct appreciation for her astonishing music ability. She was leading a life that everyone dreams for. But, she was not happy, she used to feel incomplete in her career. This is not something she wanted to do. She was looking for something that is promising, helpful and rewarding.
Are you also looking for a career like Emily? Do you feel great when you can impact someone’s life? Do you feel great when you can help someone? Then you should become a nurse assistant. It is rewarding, impactful and will give you completeness in your career.
In this blog, we have described a complete step by step guide to pursuing your career as a nursing assistant. So, you can pursue your dream career from now.
Who Is a Nurse Assistant?
In simple words, a nurse assistant is to provide assistance to the nurse. They help nurses so that everything can be done faster and efficiently. They are basically the eye of the nurse. They interact with the patient, talk to them, and notify the nurse if there are any issues regarding patient health. Their instant assistance helps patient life, helps nurses to be busy with other important duties while a nurse assistant is taking care of the patient. Nurse assistant also helps the nurse in the time of patient diagnosis. Based on their information, nurses can make proper decisions on patient treatment.
The roles and responsibility of a nurse assistant includes:
- Looking after the patient
- Recording patient’s health records like blood pressure, body temperature etc.
- Helping patients in bathing, dressing, eating, and grooming
- Use a different kind of medical software, charting software and health software
- Collect and record patients’ information and treatment plan as provided by doctors, nurses, and caregivers. Collect patient information and treatment plan and following them accordingly
- Cleaning patient’s room and restoring the room if required
- Setting up the medical equipment
- Check patient health and reporting to the nurse or the doctor if any serious issues found
- Assist and answer calls for patient
- Helping nurse to patient transportation, moving medical device and setting up rooms and tools
These are the basic roles of a nurse assistant. However, it may vary or can differ depending on the hospitals. In a simple sense, the nurse assistant made a bridge between the nurse and the patient, they stay with the patient so that the patient can get perfect care with their sweet one-to-one interaction.
Who Can Become a Successful Nursing Assistant
Nurse assistants require certain personality traits to care for patients and interact professionally and effectively with nurses, doctors, and other medical colleagues. These character traits are the most important for nurse assistants to possess:
Caring is the most common trait of a successful nurse assistant. They have to show care for patients and have to communicate with the nurse , doctors and other medical staffs professionally. However, along with this character traits nurse assistant required following qualities too
- Patience and Compassion
A nurse assistant has to deal with the patient. So they have to be very calm and compassionate on their task. They can’t show rudeness rather they have to be friendly and helpful. Besides, nurse assistants need to do long tasks like bathing, feeding etc. All these tasks require extra care and time that every nurse assistant has to show.
- Attention to Detail
No matter what nurse assistants do, they need to be very attentive at their work. They are the one who have to report to a nurse or the doctor if any issues arise. Whenever they interact with the patient they have to keep their sharp eyes on the patient. This is because of the patient’s safety. If they miss any issues, no matter how silly it is, this can cause a serious problem for the patient’s health. A nurse assistant can not take a chance on it. For this reason, they have to stay very very attentive.
- Emotional Intelligence
A nurse needs to have a high level of emotional intelligence. They empathise with patients, they help patients recover from their illness. Sometimes they have to deal with the patient’s death, sometimes they have to deal with the patient’s relatives. All these activities require a high level of emotional intelligence and strong emotional stability.
- Good Communication Skills
Communication is the key activity that every nurse assistant does. They have to communicate with the patient, they communicate with the nurse and doctors and so on. All these require good communication skills and professionalism.
How Much You Can Earn As a Nurse Assistant
Off course nursing is a novel job, but still you need money to survive. So, it is important to know how much you can earn if you choose this profession as your career. According to Indeed, you can earn up to £15,540 per year as a nurse assistant. However, this amount will grow higher depending on your knowledge and experience. Besides, if you work hourly you can earn up to £11 as your hourly payment. This amount also varies depending on the hospital you are working for.
How to Become a Certified Nursing Assistant
Now you have a complete idea about the nursing assistant job. You know what they do, what personality traits are required to be successful in this job and how much money you can earn on this job. Now it is time to know how you can start your career as a nursing assistant. To become a nursing assistant you need to follow the following steps
- Step 1: Evaluate Your Personal Qualities
Evaluate your personal qualities. Understand whether you can take this career passionately or not. Never focus on the money associated with this career. Focus on the workloads, work pressure, your personal qualities and characteristics that are required for this job. Checkout if you are able to interact with the patient and doctor, think if you have patience, if you are a good communicator, if you have compassion for the people around you, and mostly checkout if you have an attention to detail to perform this job.
If all these qualities match with your interest, if you found yourself perfectly matched with the job, if you enjoy helping people and want to impact people’s lives, only decide to start your career journey as a nursing assistant.
- Step 2 : Enrol in Graduation Course
Now it is time for the academic degree. You have to enrol 3 years education program leading to a nursing program. This will be considered as a UK level one nurse.Different universities in the uk offers specialised nursing courses. Some offer scholarships. Enrol one of the courses and start your journey toward becoming a certified nursing assistant.
- Step 3 : Enrol in Nursing Assistant Diploma Course
It will take almost 3 years to finish your bachelor degree. Now it is time to enrol for the level 3 diploma course in nursing. LIBM offers an online diploma course on nursing. Since it is online you can access this course from anywhere. The course covers all the details, fundamentals and principles of a nursing assistant. After doing this course you will gain all the skills required to become a certified nursing assistant. The course also comes with the prestigious certificate. After the course ends you will be judged by an automated test system.
The system is fully automated, so you will get your result instantly. With these courses you will get 24/7 online support whenever you need. This diploma course is only 9 hours and 25 minute long but as you can guess the return from the course is priceless.
After successful completion of this course you can fastrack your career as a certified nursing assistant. The best part of this course is, you do not need any prior requirement or qualification. Any time,anyone can start this course from anywhere.
- Step 4 : Apply for Internship
Now it is time for some real life experience. You have all the knowledge regarding nursing assistants, now it is the right time to implement those knowledge in real life. During your internship you get hands on experience as a nursing assistant.
You will get paid while working as an intern. But the amount may differ from hospital to hospital. It also depends on your employer and the minimum wage for the internship.
- Step 5 : Apply for Registration
Now it is time to register as a nursing assistant. The registration process is followed by the 7 steps. Descriptions of each of the stage are given below:
- Stage 1: Self Eligibility
This is the first step in the registration process. In this stage you have to sit for an online assessment. In this assessment test, you have to evaluate yourself based on your personal qualities and health.
You have to provide supporting documents as a proof to your statement. If you are from outside the UK then you have to meet the english language requirement.Remember without the supporting document the registration process will not go further. If you pass this stage then you will be selected for the second stage
- Stage 2: Computer Based Test
In this stage you have to sit for a computer based test. In this test your subject knowledge regarding nursing will be tested. It will be a multiple choice question. To attend this test you have to be physically present at the test center. If you don’t pass at the first attempt you will get another 2 chances to sit for the computer based test. The interval between these tests will be 10 days. Remember, you have to give this test within 6 month of your self-eligibility test.
If you fail to sit for a computer based exam within 6 month yourself-eligibility test result will expire and you have to start from stage one. If you fail the computer based exam three times, you have to wait for 6 month. After the 6 month you have to start again from stage one and then sit for the computer based test.
- Stage 3: Application Assessment
In this stage you have to submit all your supporting documents to the registration office. Registration offer will evaluate your document. If the authority board found your document satisfactory they will select you for the next round of the registration process.
- Stage 4: Objective Structured Clinical Examination
After the successful completion of stage 3 you have to sit for objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). This test will evaluate your practical and clinical knowledge that most of the nursing assistants face during their work.
The test will be based on the real life patient and clinical scenario and you have an answer based on this. OSCE contains a separate skill station, each of the skill examinations is known as a skill station. You have to pass 6 skill stations to pass this exam. Each of these skill stations have a marking criteria and a panel of examination bodies.
You can not sit for this exam outside the UK. You have to come to the UK to attend this test. You will get only 3 attempts as part of your exam. If you can not pass within these 3 attempts your application will be closed. You have to wait for another 6 month and start your application procedure from the beginning.
- Stage 5: ID Check
You have to show all your original documents face to face during your OSCE exam. If you can not bring all the documents during your exam you can still sit for the exam. However, you have to set an appointment after the exam to submit your all original document for the ID check.
- Stage 6: Registration
After successful compilation of your OSCE exam and ID check, you will receive a notification. After this notification you have to submit your final declaration and registration fee. After successful submission of the registration fee, the authority will send you the registration number. Which means you will become a registered certified nursing assistant. Never compromise on your dream. If you want to be a certified nursing assistant start working now. Your first step is to evaluate yourself, if you pass the self-evaluation then go for the next step. So, enrol the nursing assistant diploma course today and kickstart your career journey as a certified nursing assistant.
