At Brookhaven Healthcare, we constantly endeavour to fill roles by promoting people already with the organisation.
When it comes to working as a Nurse with a nursing home, the opportunities are incredible.
Pre-Registered Nurse and Nurses
Nurses can start working with Brookhaven Healthcare as pre-registered nurses if trained overseas and not yet registered with the NMBI (Irish Nursing Board) and as a Nurse if registered.
Working as a pre-registered nurse will allow you to become familiar with how the nursing home operates, all policies and procedures, and become familiar with all the residents. If you are arriving in Ireland for the first time from overseas, it will also allow you to perfect your English in preparation for your English test, which you will need to complete your NMBI registration.
Once your registration is completed, due to your experiences to date, in most cases, you will be immediately promoted to the position of Staff Nurse.
You should not look at this as the end of the journey but the beginning.
Clinical Nurse Manager
The next step in your journey will be obtaining a position as a Clinical Nurse Manager. You will still work on the floor as a nurse in this role, but you will also take on management responsibilities.
To be in a position to apply for this position, you will need a minimum of 2+ Years’ Experience working in a Nursing Home role as a Nurse
Bachelor or Master’s degree in Nursing is essential, and a qualification in Healthcare Management would not be essential, but it would go a long way in helping you secure this position, and a strong understanding of HIQA regulations is essential.
You would need to have the desire to take on this position, and during your time with Brookhaven, show strong leadership skills.
So you have been working with Brookhaven now for less than three years, and you have potentially gone from a pre-registered nurse earning €11 per hour to a nurse earning €18 per hour and now to a clinical nurse manager on €45,000 + per annum.
If this is your story, you are self-motivated and always want to move forward, so now, the next step in your career is the position of ADON (Assistant Director of Nursing). To be a suitable candidate for this position, you will need to be presently working in a management capacity in a nursing home. The more experience you have at this level, the more advantageous it is. If you have completed a post qualification in healthcare management, this will dramatically increase your chances.
You have been working in elderly care for seven years now, and you have 3+ years of experience working in a management capacity. You have also received a Post Graduate Diploma in Gerontology or a Management Qualification.
With this experience and training, you can now apply for a position as a Director of Nurses in an elderly care setting.
So, in summary, you could have started seven years ago as a pre-registered nurse earning €11 per hour. Upon obtaining your NMBI registration, you were promoted to a nursing position, where you gained at least two years of experience working in a nursing home in a residential setting earning €18 per hour. You proved to your employer during this time that you had strong leadership qualities and a desire to advance within the organisation. You applied for and got a position as a Clinical Nurse Manager, earning €45,000+ per annum. While gaining your experience at a management level, you also completed a post-graduate qualification in Gerontology or obtained a Management Qualification. You then applied for and got a position as an Assistant Director of Nursing, earning €55,000+, spending two years in this role perfecting your management skills. After seven years, you have all the qualities required to apply for a Director of Nursing Position, where you could be earning €70,000+ per annum.
