From Health Careers: Nursing associate is a new role within the nursing team. Nursing associates work with healthcare support workers and registered nurses to deliver care for patients and the public. It is also a stepping stone to becoming a registered nurse. If you're interested in becoming a Nursing associate and want to find out more please visit Health Careers.

About Trainee Nursing Associates

The Nursing Associate role is a support role that sits alongside existing healthcare support workers and fully qualified registered nurses to deliver hands-on care for patients. 

The two-year programme aims to test the ability of education and service providers to deliver high quality and innovative work-based learning programmes of education and training for Trainee Nursing Associates. This is important to:

• Ensure the role can successfully support Registered Nurses in a variety of settings to care for patients and the communities they serve

• Ensure the ongoing sustainability of the role and its alignment with work-based learning routes such as graduate nurse apprenticeships

• Support progression into pre-registration nursing programmes for those who wish to pursue a career in nursing.

Nursing Associates and Trainee Nursing Associates are work under Registered Nurses carrying out some of the more routine tasks, allowing Registered Nurses to spend more time with patients, especially those with more complex needs.

The Nursing Associate and Trainee Nursing Associates role give those working in the health and social care sector the opportunity to progress to become a Registered Nurse, training on the job without the need to study full-time. It is hoped that this will lead to increasing the number of registered nurses working in health and social care over the coming years. 

Becoming a Nursing Associate

Register as a Nursing Associate

Find out how to register as a Nursing Associate here.

OU – Free Online Resources and Nursing Associate Preparatory Learning Resources

The Open University are offering free online resources to help prepare anyone considering a career as a Nursing Associate. The OU have also made the following content available at no cost to those working in health and social care who want to refresh their knowledge and understanding as they return into practice or move their location to a new setting. It is completely free to use, individuals do not need to register to use any of the programmes, they can start and stop learning as required and can dip into courses to use just the part that is most useful to them. https://www.open.edu/openlearn/health-sports-psychology/healthcare-careers/covid-19-nursing-and-healthcare-learning-help-you-practice