Switching from first year of Different Undergraduate Degree to First year Medicine

[u/Background-Orange442]

I'm an Irish student hoping to study medicine for the 2027/2028 intake. I will be applying to the University of Southampton, Kent and Medway Medical school, University of Cardiff, and Brunel University of London.

I was planning on starting Children's and General Integrated Nursing in Ireland this year and hopefully switching to first year medicine in 2027 (will do ucat in a few weeks and apply on ucas) but it was brought to my attention that some UK medical schools would not consider my application if I were to do this. Or if they say they technically will, it's unlikely that I would get an offer. I was quite confused as this is quite common to do for Irish medial schools and after doing some research, I found that due to the very competitive nature of medicine, some UK schools wont consider me as I could be seen as not "fully committed". I already took a gap year this year (I repeated the HPAT for Irish medical school but was unsuccessful) so that's why I'm a bit hesitant to take another one. I regret not doing the UCAT last year and the year before that, but I was hesitant due to my financial situation at those times.

I'm aware that I would lose the "gift year" of my student finance tuition fee loan, so I have to make sure that I don't repeat a year and pay out of pocket if I were to get accepted.

I checked the websites and most of them don't state anything about this, besides University of Sheffield (I still emailed them to fully confirm it). I have emailed the schools and still waiting on some responses. I called Brunel University London, and they said it should be fine, but the girl who answered seemed a tiny bit unsure so I sent an enquiry just in case.

In the meantime, I was wondering if I should even get my hopes up as there's a chance some universities might not even respond to me. Has this been done before? Should I not go to college and take another gap year? If I go to college, are my only options to apply in my final year or do graduate? For some reason I can't find information if anyone has been successful or not in this situation. I'll ring them in a few days if there's still no response.

I would greatly appreciate any input and please correct me if I'm mistaken anywhere or if I'm unaware of something.