Things To Know Before You Go

Things To Know Before You Go

February 21, 2018

Welcome to (what I feel is) the most important series that I will ever write on this blog - 

Things To Know Before You Go

And by ‘go’, I mean ‘go-to-the-UK-to-work-as-a-healthcare-professional’.
Just so we're clear.

I am currently living (existing, to be fair - living has connotations that I don't know I can claim at this stage) in the UK and trying to make a life for myself as a Speech Pathologist. It wasn't the easiest or the most clear-cut process to get here, and now that I'm here it's even more difficult, to be completely honest.

Part of me really wishes that I had a list like this to work from back when I was still in the planning phase. I know you’re never going to have all the answers before you actually go somewhere, but trying to cobble together information from dozens of sources, trying to figure out what was and wasn’t relevant…it was overwhelming. I’d always intended to blog about this process, I just didn’t know quite how much of a learn-from-my-mistakes tack it was going to take.

So here is the list of things I wish someone had told me before this whole madcap adventure started.

 1.     The Stuff you need to Sort Out and the Order in which you need to Sort It Out
2.     The Stuff: HCPC
3.     The Stuff: UK Visa
4.     The Stuff: Bank Account and/or Access to Money
5.     TheStuff: Biometric Residence Permit
6.     TheStuff: National Insurance Number
7.     The Stuff: RCSLT or Equivalent
8.     The Stuff: Registering with a GP
9.     The Stuff: Locum Agencies
10.  The Stuff: Rental Agencies
11.  The Stuff: Ltd Company or Employee?

I will, no doubt, come back and modify this as I go, and as I make more mistakes. I’m an eldest sibling; after all, I’m almost contractually obligated to be a guinea pig. 

Here’s to learning from someone else’s mistakes!