Make the most of your RCN membership

As a member of the RCN, you can earn back the cost of your membership every year. Make sure you make the most of your membership to make these savings.

Tax Relief

• You could be eligible to claim up to £19.50 on the Health Practitioner full membership rate of £97.47 or up to £9.75 on the Health Practitioner first year discount rate of £48.73. If you’ve never claimed before, you can also claim for the previous four years. You may also be able to claim tax relief on your uniform (including shoes and tights) and laundry costs for your uniform. Find out more at http://www.rcn.org.uk/membership/taxrelief

Discounts

• Through RCNXtra members are saving money on all sorts of things – insurance, utilities, high street stores, supermarkets, dining out, leisure attractions, DVDs, holidays and much, much more. Use your membership number to access the RCNXtra site to see how much you could save.
• 76 members saved £757.48 through cashback gift cards in September 2012, four members saved £143.92 in July 2012 on 'Say Shopping' vouchers, car hire savings in July 2012 were £237.00 and six members saved a total of £1809.00 in September 2012 on package holidays.

Protection

• Your membership includes indemnity protection of up to £3 million against claims of clinical negligence if you are at work or on a placement (conditions apply). This includes a 'good samaritan' clause to safeguard you if you go to the aid of someone who needs urgent medical attention when you are outside of work. If you are a midwifery assistant, view the additional information relevant to you.
• The RCN has the largest in-house legal team of any union in the UK so in appropriate circumstances, you are entitled as a member to advice and representation by one of our experienced lawyers on any matter of law that occurs in the course of employment. Without RCN membership you could be forced to pay from £120 to more than £300 per hour for a lawyer. In 2011/2012 we recovered more than £4.8million of compensation for our members throughout the UK in employment litigation, criminal and personal injury claims.

Advice and support

• We support members through guidance and advice on welfare, careers, immigration and through our counselling service. In 2011/12 we advised more than 1,700 members on benefit entitlement and provided a 100 per cent success rate on welfare benefit and ill health retirement appeals. We also assisted more than 400 members to negotiate in excess of £500,000 of debt during periods of sudden drop in income or job loss.
• The RCN Careers Service provides advice on writing CVs and application forms, interview techniques and career planning. A careers coaching session can cost in excess of £100, but as a member you are entitled to free careers advice sessions, delivered by advisers with a wealth of experience of nursing and health care career pathways.
• RCN Immigration Services are authorised by the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner. We offer free consultations to members. If you were not a member, basic advice with no representation could cost a minimum of £100.

Learning and development

• The First Steps for Health Care Assistants (HCAs) induction resource can help you with your induction training as well as enable you to gain confidence in basic care skills.
• The RCN has one of the largest specialist nursing libraries in Europe with access to over 64,000 books, key nursing databases, 1,000 ejournals and 600 ebooks. Much of the service is available online meaning you can save money.
• Journals such as British journal of community nursing, British journal of healthcare assistants, British journal of nursing, Nursing and residential care and Nursing practice cost from £88 to £175 for an annual subscription. Via the RCN elibrary, you can access them for free.
• The following examples are just some of the ebooks you can access for free. Clinical Skills for Healthcare Assistants (Ingram and Lavery) RRP £24.50, Essential practice for healthcare assistants (Grainger) RRP £29.99, Lippincot’s advanced skills for nursing assistants (Carter and Stegan) RRP £44, The modernization of the nursing workforce: valuing the healthcare assistant (Kessler, Herson and Dopson) RRP £34.99 and Mosby’s textbook for nursing assistants (Sorrentino and Remmert) RRP £43.99.
• As an RCN member you can use our online Learning Zone to create an online evidence-based portfolio and develop your personal and clinical skills through bite-sized chunks of learning. The Learning Zone includes tools and exercises that you can do on your own and on areas you might not realise you need some extra help with.
• We run events that are specifically designed for HCAs, HCSWs and APs. Furthermore, as an HCA member, you can save up to 40% off the delegate fee of our conferences, seminars and workshops – this saving can be between £32 and £104.

Networking opportunities

• As a member you can join the RCN HCA and AP Network. Here you can get local news, share best practice, debate current issues and get your voice heard.
• If you have an interest in a particular area of health care, you can join one of our specialist forums. The forums help you network and enhance your practice knowledge and skills as well as provide opportunities to get involved in shaping the direction of the specialism. Or, you can just use them as a means of getting the latest information relevant to you and your practice.
• Every fortnight you will receive RCN Bulletin magazine* which is packed with news and jobs. You will also receive a quarterly e-newsletter and a twice yearly RCN HCAs&APs magazine containing news, information and advice relevant to you.

A campaigning voice

• We work alongside other unions when negotiating with decision makers to ensure that your pay and conditions are the best they can possibly be.
• We are committed to campaigning and lobbying to bring about real improvements in the lives of nurses and health care assistants - improving studying, working conditions, and training opportunities. For example our Frontline First campaign has highlighted local cuts to health budgets and is now seen as the authority on this issue as it continues to receive widespread national media coverage.
• We’ll give you the support you need to provide high quality patient care, as well as the opportunity to influence nursing policy, such as our ongoing work in support of mandatory regulation of health care support workers.

* RCN Bulletin is not available to members based overseas.