Mar 25 - GHA to Offer Nurse Training Once More
After many years, the Gibraltar Health Authority will once again be offering training opportunities for all its nurses, which will allow Nursing Assistants to be able to attain the grade of Enrolled Nurse and Registered Nurse locally.
Training to Enrolled Nurse was done away with some years ago. With nurse registration in UK becoming degree-only, it left those, usually young, nurses who did not have A-levels unable to progress in their careers or in their nurse training.
With immediate effect, Nursing Assistants will once again be able, with local training, to progress to enrolled nurse and then to registered nurse by following pathways that will be made available at the School of Health Studies at St Bernard’s Hospital.
Nursing Assistants who hold fewer than 5 GCSEs will be offered the opportunity to reach NVQ Level 2 and then continue to enrolment. Nursing Assistants who already have 5 GCSEs or Level 2 will be able to train to Enrolled Nurse. Those with 5 GCSE’s, having successfully completed Enrolment, will have attained NVQ LEVEL 3. They will then have the option of continuing training to become a Registered Nurse via the degree pathway, and to obtain a Kingston & St George’s University degree undertaken totally in Gibraltar.
Within the GHA there will be a learning pathway to meet the various needs of those Nursing Assistants who do not immediately have the necessary entry requirements for entry to the Enrolment Training or Degree in Nursing Course.
Minister for Health, Dr John Cortes stated, “I cannot fully express how pleased I am that we are now able to give an opportunity to all our nurses to develop their careers, at the School in St Bernard’s. As Chairman of the GHA, and therefore ultimately responsible for the School, I am very proud that we have
been able to make these arrangements. Not only will it give the young, and not-so-young, junior nurses a great incentive and not only will it establish once again the much-loved grade of Enrolled Nurse which traditionally has been at the heart of Nursing in Gibraltar, it will also mean that the standards of nursing overall will continue to improve, which can only be good for our patients.”
