Adult Nursing BSc (Hons)

Course overview

Working with adults of all ages, this profession focuses on improving the quality of life for others by being highly observant and building trusting relationships.

This course equips students with the skills, knowledge and personal development to enable you to meet diverse professional challenges of nursing. It aims develop you into an adaptable, reflective and compassionate practitioner through carefully devised teaching and learning methods.

The programme is complimented with significant insights into mental health, learning disability, and children and young people’s nursing.

This three-year course has been designed to meet the requirements of the Nursing and Midwifery Council. We aim to give you as much real-world experience possible, by incorporating a 50% practical and 50% theory structure. This means you have no traditional end of year exams, you receive invaluable mentoring support and you get hands-on experience of working in the field. 

What you'll study

In modern health and social care settings nursing students are increasingly required to work towards becoming autonomous practitioners, taking a leadership role in decisions regarding patient care within multi-professional settings. They routinely have the most frequent and intense contact with patients and must be competent in recognising changes in patient condition so that appropriate action can be taken.

This curriculum has been developed as a spiral curriculum with assessment at its core. Placing equal value on practice and theory, undertaking 800 hours of each per year, students study a wide range of subjects, including anatomy and physiology, pharmacology, psychology, sociology and research methods. You’ll become immersed in learning about the needs of populations, individuals, related health and nursing services with an emphasis on using research to enhance and improve services. 

The collaborative curriculum, which you’ll study alongside students from other health-related courses, has been developed in response to the need to produce professionals who are effective communicators, caring and compassionate, with good relationship building skills. It recognises the importance of inter-professional working within the health and social care workforce and comprises five core modules in the areas of: the foundations of communication and professionalism; the social determinants of health and wellbeing; evidence informed practice and decision making; working together to lead service improvement; and enhancing practice through evaluation and research.

The degree culminates with a literature review related to one aspect of nursing practice, equivalent to the standard dissertation, for which you will be required to write a 5,000 report. Past students have covered topics as diverse as end of life care, maggots in wound care, the role of the advanced nurse practitioner and CPR.

We regularly review our course content, to make it relevant and current for the benefit of our students. For these reasons, course modules may be updated.

How you'll learn

The Adult Nursing course uses a wide variety of stimulating approaches to teaching and learning to suit individual learning styles. This includes a series of interactive lectures with associated seminars, skills lab activities and practical placements. All modules are mandatory to enable you to exit the programme with the knowledge, values and skills to be able to work within integrated care settings and enhance the delivery of care for service users, their families and carers.

We will encourage you to develop an in-depth understanding of the organisation and culture of modern health care systems, equipping you with the confidence to be able to take a stronger role in the leadership and management of resources in delivering treatment and healthcare options to patients.

Throughout your studies, in groups and individually, you will undertake profession specific health and social care related projects and case studies. These may, for example, include an appraisal of the role of the nurse in ethical and legal decision making, considering service improvement bids or complex care planning and delivery via the multi-disciplinary team. You will also participate in a group poster presentation demonstrating your understanding of research underpinning patient care.

You’ll make use of our extensive simulation facilities – from basic life support mannequins to high tech simulation dummies, which emulate patient responses and test resuscitation skills. You will also use equipment found in the real world of practice, such as medical devices to assist with all elements of care, particularly medication administrations.

Gaining experience using simulation across a range of care settings is aimed at building your confidence and knowledge about how to act in these situations. You can practise and develop your clinical and interpersonal skills in a safe but realistic environment. We also use actors to enhance these experiences in scenarios which include breaking bad news, demonstrating emotional resilience, conflict, aggression, teaching and child protection conferences.

The course is underpinned by an approach to professional care which is characterised by empathy, respect, dignity and kindness towards patients and their families.

Assessment

Assessment methods vary and include, practical class and project performance, written practical reports, project thesis, oral presentations, tutorial tasks and assessments which take place at the end of each six-week block.

Course Breakdown:

• Coursework
• Practical Placement
• Formal Examinations

Job ready

On successful completion, you should have knowledge of:

• The implications of current legislation, professional regulation, standards of performance and the NMC Code.
• The nurses’ role in the enhancement of public health and biological, psychological and social wellbeing of service users.
• The biological, physiological, pharmacological, psychological and sociological knowledge which underpins all nursing practice across the lifespan. 

On successful completion, you should be able to:

• Demonstrate effective individual and team leadership skills and apply quality monitoring initiatives.
• Discuss service user and carer needs in respect of equity, fairness, antidiscrimination, rights, values, customs, culture, beliefs, sensitivity, diversity, lifestyle and environment.
• Utilise and disseminate current research findings and other forms of evidence that underpin nursing practice.
• Transfer knowledge and skills to a variety of settings and adapt practice to meet varying, unpredictable and complex circumstances.
• Seek clinical supervision to develop safe and effective nursing practice.
• Critically evaluate relevant research, possible interventions and the most up-to-date technology to support quality care delivery.
• Critically analyse situations and incidents through reflective practice activities.
• Conduct a comprehensive and systematic health assessment of service users’ needs across the lifespan using a range of appropriate assessment tools.
• Plan, implement and monitor nursing care, involving service users and carers.
• Evaluate and revise expected outcomes, nursing interventions and priorities in accordance with changes in the individual’s condition, needs or circumstances across the lifespan.
• Demonstrate a range of essential nursing skills and seek supervision to develop safe, compassionate, skilful and autonomous nursing practice.
• Consult with service users and carers to identify and respond to their need and desire for health promotion advice, education, support and the development of services.
• Co-ordinate the delivery of nursing and healthcare within one’s sphere of professional accountability, including people with complex and co-existing needs.
• Provide safe and effective immediate care to all people

Facilities

We’ve spent £14 million on a brand new campus building. It’s a purpose-built, state of-the-art development that is one of the most modern facilities in the UK.

It includes a library, IT suites, mock law court, engineering and science labs, cafe and lots of individual and group study spaces. Next to us is Scarborough’s new leisure village. The complex includes an Olympic legacy swimming pool, sports hall, fitness suite, all weather pitches and the new Scarborough Athletic football ground.