I GOT MY NNAS ADVISORY REPORT!! (Plus Timeline)

After a grueling 9 months of constant battle with NNAS, I finally have my advisory report!

The BIGGEST Sigh Of Relief

I was at my wits end with dealing with NNAS.

Back and forth emails for months, leading to multiple almost-breakdowns. My advisory finally report got issued on January 4, 2019.

This journey so far has not been easy at all. As it was so infuriating, I couldn't even write about it when I was in the midst of it.

Below will be a breakdown of the application stages that happen whilst you're waiting for your report. Following this, I will give you my own personal timeline.

NNAS Application Stages

The NNAS dashboard goes through status changes submitted. The status' for the dashboard are as follows;

• Waiting for required items
• Ready for evaluation
• Ready for review
• Ready for final review
• Advisory report

I managed to skip the 'ready for final review' phase! There will be more information about this later.

The documents themselves have status updates too;

• Waiting for initial documents
• Waiting to authenticate
• Ready for evaluation
• Meets requirements

Once all your documents have been received by NNAS, the status will change to waiting to authenticate. The waiting to authenticate stage is where NNAS make sure all your documents are official. Your file will then be ready for evaluation. After this, if all documents are to NNAS standards, the status will change to meets requirements, and your dashboard will change to 'ready for review'.

Okay, so now for my own personal timeline. Hold on tight, because you're in for a bumpy ride...

My NNAS Application Timeline

• April 12, 2019 - Paid for NNAS (Registered Nurse application)
• April 12, 2019 - Application and payment in full says meets requirements
• April 18, 2019 - Mailed identity documents to NNAS

I sent an original notarized copy (from a lawyer) of my passport and drivers license

• April 18, 2019 - Mailed a USB drive to my university (for them to upload my course syllabus - they mentioned it was too large to print)

My university were also sending my official transcripts alongside the syllabus

• April 27, 2019 - Paid for LPN application
• May 8, 2019 - Paid for License/Registration documents - Certificate of Current Professional Status (CCPS) from Nursing and Midwifery Council

The fee for this was £34. It is an electronic document that is uploaded straight to your NNAS account

• May 9, 2019 - CCPS is ready for revaluation

This was a huge shock. The status changed to ready for evaluation overnight!

• May 20, 2019 - Identity document is waiting to authenticate
• May 23, 2019 - 1st Employer information document - waiting to authenticate
• May 24, 2019 - Education documents are waiting to authenticate
• May 30, 2019 - Identity document - ready for evaluation
• May 31, 2019 - I noticed that now only 1 of my 2 employers was showing on my dashboard

This was despite my 2nd employer sending the information out earlier than the 1st. So, I emailed NNAS and...

• June 5, 2019 - NNAS said they were 'experiencing technical difficulties', hence why my 2nd employer was not showing up.
• June 14, 2019 - Education documents - ready for evaluation
• July 4, 2019 - File is now ready for review, but now my 1st employer documents are missing, and 2nd is ready for evaluation

I emailed NNAS to find out what happened. They did not understand what I was asking. After trying to explain, I sent them screenshots of my dashboard with arrows and they finally understood, then looked into it.

• September 17, 2019 - Education documents, identity document, license/registration document all meets requirements

My 2nd employer documents got 'waived' as they could not fill out the NNAS employment form

• September 17, 2019 - 1st employer changed to ready for evaluation

I spent months emailing NNAS back and forth to find out why my entire file had been reviewed except for this 1 employer. I got misunderstood, and received unhelpful responses. NNAS wouldn't give me my evaluators contact information. So I asked to speak to a manager on December 19, 2019. NNAS then escalated my file to my evaluator

• December 20, 2019 - 1st employer changed to 'waived'

I was so upset after seeing this. Clearly someone had reviewed my entire file on September 17. Why did it take NNAS 3 months review 1 document on my file TO THEN HAVE IT WAIVED ANYWAY!

• January 3, 2019 - Advisory report issued! YAY!

• January 4, 2019 - Email from NNAS titled "NNAS Advisory Report Available'. The email noted: The National Nursing Assessment Service (NNAS) will send a copy of your Advisory Report and supporting documentation to BCCNP.

Things to Note:

• My language proficiency was waived pretty early on in my application. This was due to my schooling and place of employment being in English.
• My employers and university were very efficient and easy to communicate with.
• It was amazing that my nursing license/registration was an electronic form that they uploaded instantaneously.
• My employer situation (being 'ready for evaluation' to them both being 'waived' was a lot more extensive than noted above. They informed me that the 1st employer was waived as they did not fill out the form either. I'm still pretty angry about this, as surely the person who reviewed my file on September 17 knew this, but kept me in limbo for months!
• My file did not go through the 'ready for final review' phase. I think this is because I made it very clear to NNAS that it was not acceptable that I had 1 document ready for review for 3 MONTHS, for it to not even be included in my final report.

Afterword on NNAS

There were a lot of hiccups and bumps along the way. For example, NNAS not telling me that they were not going to include my employers documents. The only reason I found out was because I was emailing them obsessively about it!

I really wish NNAS would contact their applicants and inform them of what is happening with their file. Instead of it being guess work and a constant battle for the applicant. I felt like I was trying to solving a crime... Call me Nancy Drew.

I'm still shocked at the terrible communication (I would ask a question and they would respond with something entirely different or unhelpful). In addition, I'm appalled at the low level of efficiency displayed from NNAS. Especially given how much money the application costs!

If I've learnt anything from this, it is that complaining gets you somewhere. I was emailing NNAS pretty much every few weeks to find out what was happening with my application. If a change has been made to your application that you're unsure about, tell them as soon as possible.

I chose to communicate with NNAS through email, just so I would have all the correspondence in writing.

My Next Steps

Whilst I know that my situation may not be as extensive as other peoples application process, it really did wear me down.

I am so very happy that this stage is over.

It's time for the next step, which will be applying to BCCNP (now BCCNM).

I thought that things will be a lot smoother now that NNAS is over. So, imagine my shock when my friend told me:

"NNAS is the easy part"

Scary stuff!

Now let's see what BCCNM has in store for me...