Nobody tells you that the most exhausting part of your first week in London will not be the jet lag, the new commute, or even orienting yourself to an unfamiliar hospital system. It will be the bureaucracy. The quiet, relentless, seemingly circular bureaucracy that greets every new arrival to the UK with a cheerful series of catch-22s and forms that require information you do not yet have in order to obtain the information you do not yet have. I am being slightly dramatic – but only slightly. When I arrived in London to start at GSTT, I had done what I thought was thorough research. I had a folder. A physical, printed, colour-coded folder. And I still spent the better part of my first fortnight untangling administrative knots that nobody had warned me about in any of the blogs, Facebook groups, or recruitment calls I had consulted beforehand.
This article is the checklist I wish I had been handed at the airport. It covers the three most urgent administrative tasks for any Australian nurse arriving in the UK: opening a bank account, obtaining a National Insurance number, and registering with a GP. Each one matters, each one has its own particular frustrations, and getting across all three in your first week will make everything that follows considerably smoother.
Opening a UK Bank Account – Start Here, Before Almost Anything Else
The bank account problem is one of the great circular frustrations of arriving in the UK, and it catches almost every new arrival off guard at least once. The standard requirement for opening a bank account with a high street bank – Barclays, HSBC, NatWest, Lloyds – is proof of a UK address. A utility bill, a tenancy agreement, or a letter from your employer addressed to a UK address. The problem, of course, is that most landlords want to see a UK bank account before they will offer you a tenancy. You need an address to get a bank account, and a bank account to get an address. Welcome to London.
The practical solution, and the one that most Australians now arrive with knowledge of, is to open an account with one of the app-based challenger banks before or immediately upon arrival. Monzo and Starling are the two most commonly used, and both will open a current account with nothing more than your passport and a selfie verification through their apps. You do not need a UK address. You do not need a credit history. You can have a functioning account with a UK sort code and account number within twenty-four to forty-eight hours of applying.
This account will serve several immediate purposes: your employer will need UK bank details before your first pay run, your phone plan will likely require a direct debit, and having a UK account makes the Oyster card and TfL contactless system work properly. I used Monzo for my first three months, then opened a more traditional account with Barclays once I had a tenancy agreement in place and could meet the standard requirements. Many nurses I know have simply stayed with Monzo indefinitely – it is perfectly functional for everyday banking and has no fees for overseas transactions, which is useful when you are still moving money between Australia and the UK.
What to Know About Transferring Money from Australia
If you are arriving with Australian savings and need to move money across, resist the temptation to use your Australian bank’s international transfer service. The exchange rates and fees are almost universally poor compared to dedicated transfer services. Wise – formerly TransferWise – is the most widely used option among expat Australians and offers significantly better rates with transparent fees. Set it up before you leave Sydney if you can, as the verification process takes a few days. OFX is another solid option for larger transfers. Your future self, counting pounds in a Zone 2 flat share, will thank you.
Getting Your National Insurance Number – Less Urgent Than You Think, but Don’t Ignore It
Your National Insurance number – NI number, or NINo – is the UK equivalent of your Australian Tax File Number. It is used to track your tax and National Insurance contributions, and you will eventually need it for employment, for your NHS pension contributions, and for any interaction with HMRC. Here is the thing that many guides do not tell you clearly: you do not need your NI number before you start work. Your employer can take you on and pay you correctly while your application is being processed, as long as you have the right to work in the UK – which, if you have arrived on a Health and Care Worker visa or a Youth Mobility visa, you do.
That said, apply for it in your first week anyway. The processing time has historically varied from a few weeks to a few months depending on the current volume of applications, and the sooner you apply, the sooner it is resolved.
How to Actually Apply
The application process is now handled entirely online through the Government Gateway portal at gov.uk. You will need to create a Government Gateway account if you do not already have one, verify your identity, and complete the NI number application form. You will need your passport, your visa documentation, and your UK address. If you are still in temporary accommodation when you apply, use that address – you can update your details later. After submitting, you will typically receive a letter confirming your NI number within a few weeks, though in some cases an in-person appointment may be requested for identity verification. Keep an eye on your post and do not ignore any letters from HMRC or the Department for Work and Pensions during this period.
One practical note: make sure your employer’s payroll team knows you have applied and that the NI number is pending. They will have a process for handling this, and it is routine – you are not the first international hire they have encountered.
Registering with a GP – Do This in Week One, Not When You Need It
This is the one that Australian nurses are most likely to deprioritise, because we tend to assume we will sort out healthcare when we actually need healthcare. Do not do this. Register with a GP in your first week, while you have time and energy to do it properly, and not at eleven o’clock on a Sunday night when you have a suspected ear infection and no idea where to start.
In the UK, your GP – General Practitioner – is your primary point of care and your gateway to the rest of the NHS. Specialist referrals, prescriptions, mental health support, sick certificates for work – all of it runs through your GP. If you have not registered with one, you are not in the system, and accessing care in a non-emergency context becomes considerably more complicated.
How GP Registration Works
GPs in the UK operate by catchment area – you need to register with a practice that covers your home address. The NHS website has a GP finder tool at nhs.uk that allows you to search by postcode. Once you have identified a practice in your area, you register directly with them, either through their website, in person at the surgery, or increasingly through the NHS App.
You will need to complete a registration form and provide your name, date of birth, address, and NHS number. If you do not yet have your NHS number – and many newly arrived nurses do not in the first few days – you can still register and the practice will either locate your number or arrange for one to be assigned. The NHS number is generated when you first interact with the NHS, so if you have completed any pre-employment health screening through GSTT’s occupational health team, you may already have one.
The NHS App – Download It Now
The NHS App is genuinely useful and worth downloading immediately after you register with a GP. Once your registration is confirmed – which can take a few days – you can use the app to book and manage GP appointments, order repeat prescriptions, view your medical records, and access your NHS COVID vaccination record. For a nurse who has just arrived and is trying to navigate a new healthcare system while also managing the approximately ten thousand other tasks of settling into a new country, having your healthcare admin consolidated in one place on your phone is a small but real quality of life improvement.
The Other Bits – A Rapid-Fire Checklist for Week One
Beyond the three main tasks above, there are a handful of smaller items worth ticking off in your first week that tend to fall through the cracks.
Your council tax registration is worth sorting out as soon as you have a settled address. If you are living in a flat share, this may be covered by your landlord or split between tenants – confirm this in writing before you assume. If you are in NHS keyworker accommodation, check what is and is not included in your rent.
Register for online access with HMRC through your Government Gateway account. This is where you will manage your tax code, check your contributions, and eventually claim any overpaid tax when you leave the UK – and many Australians do leave some tax on the table because they never set this up.
If you drive, be aware that you can use your Australian licence in the UK for up to twelve months. After that, you will need to apply for a UK licence through the DVLA. The process involves surrendering your Australian licence, so if you are planning to return home within twelve months, look into the implications before you begin.
Finally, and I cannot stress this enough – redirect your Australian mail. Set up mail redirection through Australia Post, inform your Australian bank, superannuation fund, and any government agencies of your overseas address, and make sure someone back home can receive any physical correspondence that cannot be redirected. My tax return from the ATO very nearly went to a flat I had moved out of three months earlier.
The Bigger Picture
None of this is intellectually difficult, but all of it requires time, attention, and a certain tolerance for sitting on hold or refreshing a government website. My honest advice is to treat the first week’s admin as its own project, separate from settling into the hospital and the ward. Give it a morning or an afternoon each day, work through the list methodically, and resist the temptation to let it drift. The nurses I know who struggled most in those early weeks were not the ones who found the clinical work hard – they were the ones who let the admin pile up until it became genuinely stressful. Get the foundations in place early and the rest of the adjustment becomes much more manageable. London is considerably more enjoyable when you are not also worried about your bank account.