International nurses

Thank you for considering applying for a post with us at Royal Papworth Hospital. We warmly welcome candidates from overseas. You can apply directly to our hospital by completing an application on one of our job vacancy adverts.

Following your application, these are then shortlisted by staff within the respective areas to assess your suitability for the role. If you are successful at this stage, we will invite you to further assess your knowledge and skills. 

We want to ensure that your interview experience is a positive one. You will have questions asked by some of our team, but we do this in a supportive way to ensure we get the best out of you and you can get a sense of the values of our organisation.
 

Moving countries and uprooting your life is one of the hardest things you can do. We want to ensure you are fully supported throughout this process. 

It can be hard to know what to pack and bring with you.

To help with that, we provide all overseas staff (recruited directly from overseas) with bath towels, bedding and pillows, cutlery, plates, bowls, cooking pots, a mobile phone SIM card and other fundamentals to help get you set-up for life in the UK.

We will support you in setting up a UK bank account to ensure you have a means of being paid once you arrive.  

We also have a comprehensive welcome guide which tells you about life in the area as well as what to expect from work and your pay.

We are very fortunate to have our own staff accommodation based at Waterbeach, which is eight miles from Cambridge. A bus service runs between the accommodation multiple times each day at a rate of £2 each way. 

Your accommodation at Waterbeach will be a single room with shared bathroom, kitchen and communal spaces. The bedrooms contain a bed, desk, wardrobe and a small set of drawers. 

For when you are not at work, there are shops and amenities in Waterbeach which are set out in the welcome guide. You can also get a direct train to London, which takes about 45 minutes.  

As part of our benefits package of joining Royal Papworth Hospital as an internationally recruited nurse, ODP or radiographer (all at band 5) we make a contribution towards your deposit for the accommodation and one month’s rent.

Monthly rent is currently £450/month which includes all utility bills and Wi-Fi. We are fortunate to be able to offer one-year tenancy agreements which helps you to get settled here. 
 

To help you settle into life in the UK, you will have an initial two-week period to get adjusted and learn your surroundings.

During this period, you will be paid and we will help you to open a UK bank account, attend occupational health appointments, and collect biometric residency permits. 

We will arrange taxis to pick you up and bring you back from these essential visits, again to ease the burden on you.

During this period of settling in, it is a good chance to meet your fellow new arrivals as well as meet previous cohorts who have subsequently passed their OSCE exam. 

You’ll meet our OSCE training lead, Matt Achurra, as well as have contact from the clinical area in which you will be working.

Our OSCE training lead, Matt Achurra, is an expert in OSCE training. Matt is an overseas recruit himself so he fully understands the transition you will go through.

We are proud of our OSCE training programme and have a 100% pass rate. We utilise the different test centres around the country to ensure you undertake your OSCE within the first 12 weeks of arrival. 

We will arrange your OSCE examination date, travel and accommodation for your OSCE exam. The cost of your first attempt examination, travel, and accommodation is covered within your generous benefits package.

At Royal Papworth, we are all invested in wanting you to pass your OSCE exam and you will feel the support of the whole Trust in achieving this objective.