Nursing - Learning Disabilities and Child - Dual Award - MSci
Our Integrated Master's in Nursing – Dual Award is run alongside, and integrates, with our BSc (Hons) Nursing programme. Through this four-year programme, you will learn alongside students from different fields of nursing (Adult, Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Child) and have tailored support to help you achieve the Master's element of the course....
Studying with us in 2021/22
It is possible that the 2021/22 academic year may be affected by the ongoing disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Any arrangements put in place by the University for the 2021/22 academic year will be in accordance with the latest government public health advice, pandemic-related/health and safety legislation, and the terms and conditions of the student contract.
- Level Undergraduate
- Study mode Full Time
- Location City South
- Award MSci
- Start date September 2021
- Fees View course fees
- School School of Nursing and Midwifery
- Faculty Faculty of Health, Education and Life Sciences
Course is Full for 2021/22 Entry
This course is now full for 2021/22. You can apply for 2022/23 via UCAS from September 2021.
If you'd still like to apply for September 2021, take a look at some of our other available courses.
Course overview
Our Integrated Master's in Nursing – Dual Award is run alongside, and integrates, with our BSc (Hons) Nursing programme. Through this four-year programme, you will learn alongside students from different fields of nursing (Adult, Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Child) and have tailored support to help you achieve the Master's element of the course.
As a dual award course, you will spend time on placement in different hospital and clinical settings across the West Midlands area to help you qualify in your chosen fields of nursing.
The course is accredited by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and you will be able to apply for Registered Nurse status in two fields of nursing on successful completion of the course. The reference to ‘dual award’ indicates the professional NMC dual registration you will be eligible for on successful completion.
What's covered in this course?
In the first two years you will study with BSc (Hons) Nursing students on modules with integrated theoretical content, learning about all fields of nursing - Adult, Child, Mental Health and Learning Disabilities. The early part of the course aimed at developing your confidence and competence in working with and caring for people of all ages across the lifespan, with a range of health needs.
During the third and fourth year, the course focuses on your dual award. You will take learning disabilities and child nursing specific modules aligned to practice placements, which will help to build on your previous learning and develop proficiency in your chosen fields of practice. These modules will help develop you as a leader and critical thinker to apply research-informed, evidence-based care, to plan, evaluate and coordinate care, supervise other health professionals and gain confidence in the safe management of medication.
You will also benefit from having personalised, field specific academic and clinical support and bespoke action learning sets to accelerate research-informed evidence-based decision-making.
Your placement learning experiences may be within community, hospital or home environment settings and at a location anywhere within the West Midlands and potentially into neighbouring counties, particularly for the Learning Disability field placements. While on placement, you will be supported, supervised and assessed by practice and academic staff to develop your knowledge and skills.
We are committed to providing excellent, innovative, learning, teaching and assessment experiences through the use of technology, which we use to enhance your learning, through lectures, seminars, skills simulation and virtual learning. Engaging with practice partners and service users is also integral to our approach.
Our MSci Nursing dual award course has been designed to comply with the new Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) standards (2018) meaning that successful completion of this course makes you eligible to apply and be entered onto the NMC register in two of the four fields of nursing, Learning Disabilities and Child.
Why Choose Us?
- Funding - Nursing students will receive at least £5,000 a year in additional funding for maintenance and associated study costs. Download the funding FAQs
- Excellent employability rate - over 99 per cent of our graduates are studying or in work within six months (DLHE 2016/17)
- You will study at our recently extended £71 million City South Campus, complete with real-life hospital environments and simulation equipment so you can practice your practical skills at all times – not just on placement
- Birmingham is one of the UK’s most diverse cities outside of London, which provides you with a wide variety of experience that will be valuable to take forward into your future career.
- Opportunities to go abroad, if this is something you would like to explore during your time studying with us
- Student finance - have you already had a student loan to study an undergraduate degree but would like to do a second degree in nursing, midwifery or the allied health professions? You may still be eligible for funding
Similar Courses
Entry Requirements
We accept a range of qualifications, the most popular of which are detailed below.
Essential Requirements
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128 UCAS tariff points from A/AS Level |
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| UK Qualification | Requirements 2021/22 | |
| GCSE |
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| BTEC Level 2 Diploma |
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| BTEC Level 2 Extended Certificate |
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| Functional Skills/ Essential Skills level 2 |
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| Key Skills level 2 |
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| Irish Leaving Certificate (Ordinary Level) |
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| Scottish Intermediate 2 |
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| Scottish Credit Standard Grade |
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| Scottish National 5 |
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| IELTS |
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| Plus one of the following Level 3 (and above) Qualifications | ||
| UK Qualification | Requirements 2021/22 | |
| A level and Advanced VCE |
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| Access to HE Diploma |
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British bachelor's degree |
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| NCFE CACHE Level 3 Extended Diploma for Children’s Care, Learning and Development (Wales and Northern Ireland) |
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| NCFE CACHE Level 3 Extended Diploma for the Children and Young People’s Workforce |
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| City and Guilds Level 3 Advanced Technical Extended Diploma (1080) |
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International Baccalaureate Diploma |
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Irish Leaving Certificate (Highers) |
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OCR Cambridge Technical Extended Diploma |
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OCR Cambridge Technical Diploma |
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| Open University courses |
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Scottish Advanced Higher |
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T-Levels |
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Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate - Skills Challenge Certificate (first teaching September 2015) |
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Welsh Baccalaureate Advanced Diploma – Core (awarded until 2016) ESW/KS Combined component |
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| Other qualifications | ||
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If you have a qualification that is not listed in the table please refer to our full entry requirements on UCAS. Qualifications that are not listed will be considered on an individual basis. Applicants require:
Recent relevant study to GCE A-level standard or above must have been completed within five years of the course intake date the applicant is applying for. Further guidance on tariff points can be found on the UCAS website. International candidates: Those who meet residency/academic requirements of UK students but whose language is not English will need to hold IELTS with an overall score of at least 7.0. In addition
I really want to become a nurse but do not meet your entry requirements. What advice can you give me?
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Fees & How to Apply
- UK students
- International students
Award: MSci
Starting: Sep 2021
- Mode
- Duration
- Fees
- Full Time
- 4 years
- £9,250 per year
- Applications Closed
Sorry, this course is not available to International students.
This course is now full for 2021/22. You can apply for 2022/23 via UCAS from September 2021 .
If you'd still like to apply for September 2020, take a look at some of our other available courses in Clearing.
Personal statement
Your personal statement is a highly important part of your application. It gives you a crucial opportunity to say why you’re applying and why the institution should accept you.
Here are the key areas you’ll need to address:
Course choice
Why does this course appeal? What areas are of particular interest?
Career plans
If you have a specific career in mind, say how your chosen course will help you pursue this goal.
Work experience
Mention any work that is relevant to your subject, highlighting the skills and experience gained.
School or college experience
Highlight skills gained at school/college, eg summer schools or mentoring activities.
Non-accredited skills or achievement
eg Duke of Edinburgh Award, Young Enterprise scheme.
You should also mention your future plans – if you’re planning to take a year out, don't forget to give your reasons. Talk about any subjects you’re studying that don’t have a formal assessment and any sponsorships or placements you’ve applied for. And don't be scared to add in details about your social, sports or leisure interests.
Get more information on writing personal statements.
Course in Depth
Year One
In order to fully complete this course and be eligible for application for entry onto the NMC register, a student must successfully achieve all 480 credits.
20 credits
The NMC standards aim to ensure that nurses are able to work in ways that are not only fit for today, but also for the future. Nurses are being asked to undertake more complex roles than ever before in an evolving health and care landscape requiring a depth and breadth of a range of topics (Smith, 2017). This module aims to provide an introduction to fundamental nursing knowledge and skills, as well as develop a pride in the profession and the role of the nurse.
20 credits
This module will focus specifically on the final stages of the nursing process which includes a systematic and collaborative approach to providing and evaluating care for people and families across the lifespan. You will learn how to support individuals and if appropriate their families and carers, to make informed choices through effective communication, relationship management skills and shared decision making. You will develop an evidence based approach to working in partnership with people, families and carers to continuously monitor, evaluate and reassess the effectiveness of all agreed nursing care plans and readjust agreed goals as necessary.
20 credits
The aim of this module is to help you start to enhance your skills in leadership, management and team-working, in addition to the development of your ability to promote health and assist people to modify their lifestyles to enhance healthier lives. Nurses are leaders who are participative, facilitative and emotionally intelligent. Effective leadership styles contribute to team cohesion, lower stress, and higher empowerment and self-efficacy. Leadership is a predictor of quality outcomes in health care settings. Authentic leaders offer good role modelling consistent with ethical values and vision for health care. They offer individualised consideration of staff, provide motivation and stimulate creativity and innovation (RCN 2017).
20 credits
Good nursing care is based on the identification of the needs of the person and should be appropriate to the nursing context in which the assessment takes place (DH, 2014). This module will focus specifically on the first two steps of the cyclical nursing process, a model that helps to deliver appropriate and effective care and resolve peoples’ needs by setting goals. Undertaking a comprehensive assessment is the first stage of the nursing process and one in which the nurse is required to ensure the person and, if appropriate, their family and carers are fully involved. A thorough assessment enables the second stage of the nursing process; that of planning care. It is at this stage that person-centred, holistic care can then be identified prior to the third and fourth stages of the process, which are known as providing and evaluating care.
40 credits
The module provides you with an introduction to and ongoing support for practice elements of your programme. The module is designed to enable you to achieve practice proficiencies within your chosen field of practice through ongoing guided participation in care within the practice setting. The module offers preparation, development and consolidation to grow your confidence and acquire competence within the practice learning environment.
You will be able to practice and develop your nursing skills within a safe, supportive environment, participate in teaching and learning sessions that support begin to allow you to identify and reflect on your own learning needs and experiences in practice.
Year Two
20 credits
This module aims to provide you with the knowledge and strategies to develop problem solving and decision making skills. These skills will enable you to undertake the assessment and planning of complex situations and health conditions across the life span in a variety of nursing settings.
20 credits
This module builds on previous learning to further advance your knowledge and skills to provide holistic care across a variety of care settings. You will explore theory in order to lead, deliver and evaluate complex care for a range of service users across the lifespan. Expanding on the modules in level four and complex care 1, you will continue to develop nursing care which is person centred, encompasses empowerment, uses effective communication and employs evidence based interventions.
20 credits
In this module, you will get the opportunity to focus on issues of quality and safety in health care, incorporating a public health perspective in both a national and global context. Building on level four modules you will further your understanding of health policy, exploring what influences public health and causes health inequalities. Well-being as a concept will be further explored particularly in relation to sexual health, as will the service users/patient’s capacity to manage their own health and the role of the nurse in assisting patients/service users to make behaviour changes. This will also build on the work done in previous modules on empowerment and person and family centred care.
20 credits
The NMC (2018) and HEE stress nursing leadership is a core nursing role in the delivery of modern health services. You will build on the skills developed at level four to further consider nursing leadership, legal aspects of nursing and management strategies required in contemporary health and social care settings.
40 credits
The module provides you with the opportunity for further development and ongoing support for practice elements of your programme. The module is designed to enable you to achieve within your chosen field of practice through ongoing guided participation in care within the practice setting. The module offers year 2 preparation, development and consolidation to support confidence and competence within the practice learning environment.
Year Three
20 credits
This module will build on the knowledge and skills developed at levels 4 and 5. The role of the nurse is to play a key role in improving and maintaining the mental, physical, cognitive, behavioural, social and spiritual health whilst working in partnership with the infant, child, young person and their family. We will help you further develop the skills learnt throughout the course in order to prioritise the needs of the child and family when assessing and reviewing all aspects of health and well-being. We will support you in learning how to interpret increasingly advanced assessments, how to respond, identify, plan and coordinate care that fulfils the needs of each child and family whilst ensuring evidence-based practice underpins your decisions.
20 credits
This module aims to build on previous modules to prepare you to recognise and demonstrate accountability and professionalism in relation to pharmacology and medicines management. Understanding the importance of safe medication use in children and young people is paramount due to the complexities of prescribing and administration. Throughout the module you will be expected to debate strategies relating to medication concordance, family centred care, shared decision making and evaluation.
20 credits
This module aims to help you examine your identity as a leader in children and young peoples’ health services. Caring for children young people and their families has recently been met with an unprecedented pace of change and increasing levels of complexity and demand for services. Therefore provision of effective leadership is more important than ever before. As a result of these changes and to meet service demand, a number of new roles have been developed and introduced to the nursing workforce.
20 credits
This module aims to consolidate your risk assessment, decision making and appraisal skills to ensure safety and quality of nursing practice across a variety of settings. You will be equipped with the skills and knowledge to work in partnership with a range of professionals, interdisciplinary teams and most importantly the child, young person and their family. Through examination of your knowledge and experience, you will be expected to strengthen your emotional intelligence and resilience. Additionally, you will be supported to provide evidence-based rationales for the judgements that you make in complex, rapidly changing environments. This will enable you to think critically, apply knowledge and skills to deliver evidence based, high quality, safe family-centred care working in partnership with the child or young person.
40 credits
The module provides you with further development and ongoing support for practice elements of your programme. The module is designed to enable you to achieve within your chosen field of practice. This will be through ongoing supervision and by practising independently with minimal supervision within the practice setting. The module offers year 3 preparation, development and consolidation to support confidence and competence within the practice learning environment.
Year Four
20 credits
This module aims to equip you to identify the holistic needs of the person with a learning disability and produce an evidence-based, co-ordinated, person-centred package of care that takes into consideration all current and future care needs of an individual with learning disabilities.
20 credits
This module aims to equip you with a secure understanding of physiology and systems of the body, focusing on specific health needs of people with learning disabilities, which will enable the assessment and provision of evidence based care and interventions. It also aims to develop your ability to critically appraise the use of medication amongst people with learning disabilities and ensure that legal, ethical and professional issues are considered.
20 credits
This module aims to help you examine your identity as a leader, leadership theory, policy and research to guide the management of care as a learning disabilities nurse. Caring for people with a learning disability in the health and social care setting has recently been met with an unprecedented pace of change and increasing levels of complexity and demand for services. Therefore provision of effective leadership in learning disabilities nursing is more important than ever before. As a result of these changes and to meet service demand, a number of new roles have been developed and introduced to the nursing workforce.
20 credits
This module aims to consolidate your risk assessment, decision making and appraisal skills to ensure safety and quality of care for people with learning disabilities across a range of areas. This is especially important for the learning disabilities nurse, because your role is central to ensuring equality of access to health care services for people with learning disabilities. The module supports you in becoming equipped with the skills and knowledge to work in partnership with a range of professionals, interdisciplinary teams and most importantly the service user, carer and family.
40 credits
The module provides you with further development and ongoing support for practice elements of your programme. The module is designed to enable you to achieve within your chosen field of practice. This will be through ongoing supervision and by practising independently with minimal supervision within the practice setting. The module offers year 3 preparation, development and consolidation to support confidence and competence within the practice learning environment.
Course Structure
Year One
As an undergraduate, the first year prepares you for further study and facilitates your understanding of the principles which underpin nursing. This is supported by numerous placement learning experiences over the year.
Your University Modules are taught and assessed alongside your BSc (Hons) Nursing colleagues. Your Practice Placements are organised around a practice hub (e.g. hospital ward/unit/community hub) and allied experience, for example, Child hub and Learning Disability allied experiences. For your practice assessment you will be assessed in one Field only.
Year Two
During this year university modules will continue to have a generic focus and help develop core nursing skills and knowledge in: leadership, assessment and evaluation of care. Clinical placements will be more targeted to your dual award, with placements in both fields of practice. At the end of the second year, clinical practice assessment will be in the same field as year one.
Again for this year, your University Modules are taught and assessed alongside BSc (Hons) Nursing colleagues. Your placements are organised as: Placement 1 Field A, Placement 2 Field B and Placement 3 Field A. For your practice assessment you will again be assessed in one Field only.
Years Three and Four
As you continue on the MSci dual award programme, placements in your third and fourth year alternate between your chosen fields of nursing. In these years, University modules follow the flow of placements. In the fourth year your University modules you will be assessed at Master's level.
Your Year Three University Modules are taught and assessed alongside BSc (Hons) Nursing colleagues in specific Field modules, which align to your field placements. Your placements are organised as: Placement 1 Field B, Placement 2 Field A and Placement 3 Field A. For your practice assessment you will again be assessed in one Field only.
Your Year Four University Modules are taught and assessed alongside BSc (Hons) Nursing colleagues in specific Field modules, which align to your field placements. Your placements will alternate between your two fields: Placement 1 Field A, Placement 2 Field A and Placement 3 Field A and B. In this year your practice assessment will be in both Fields.
You'll experience a mixture of teaching, self-directed study and practice-based clinical placements, spending half of your time each year on placement.
Upon successful completion you'll graduate with a MSci Nursing – dual award worth 480 credits and be eligible to apply for Registered Nurse status with the Nursing and Midwifery Council in both the Learning Disability and Child fields of practice.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) works with partner organisations to set and maintain high standards of nursing and midwifery education across the UK.
This course has been approved and monitored by the NMC to make sure that the education and training on offer meets their standards.
To work as a nurse or midwife, you must pass an NMC approved course at a higher education institution (HEI) in pre-registration nursing and midwifery, leading to registration with the NMC.
Athena Swan Bronze Award
The School of Nursing and Midwifery has successfully secured the Athena SWAN Departmental Bronze Award recognising a commitment to gender equality.
Employability
Employability
We have collaborated with clinical practice colleagues, service users and carers in the West Midlands region to design our dual awards to meet the changing health care needs and services of the region, and beyond, nationally. This is a highly relevant, exciting, varied and timely course, positioning you at the centre of the changing scope of patient care and services care in the 21st century.
Holding a dual award offers more employment options. Choosing either to specialise in one field of practice or work towards specialising in clinical roles where being qualified in two fields of practice is required for specialist roles in emergency care, primary care and clinical liaison roles in large hospitals.
Once qualified and registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council you can practice in the UK and many countries overseas. As a qualified nurse you could find yourself working within the NHS, the private sector, in the community, at GP surgeries, at schools, plus many more - the options are endless.
OpportUNIty
OpportUNIty: Student Jobs on Campus ensures that our students are given a first opportunity to fill many part-time temporary positions within the University. This allows you to work while you study with us, fitting the job around your course commitments. By taking part in the scheme, you will gain valuable experiences and employability skills, enhancing your prospects in the job market.
It will also allow you to become more involved in University life by delivering, leading and supporting many aspects of the learning experience, from administration to research and mentoring roles.
Facilities and Staff
Our Facilities
We are constantly investing in our estate and are currently in the process of spending £340 million on new learning facilities.
We boast up-to-date, innovative facilities that simulate the real situations that medical staff may come across.
These resources are essential in offering students a hands-on introduction to health and social care practice. Much of our teaching is carried out within our state-of-the-art, £30m Seacole Building, which houses cutting-edge facilities.
Take a virtual tour of our skills suites at Seacole
In a sector where new techniques are constantly being discovered, we work hard to ensure that students learn using the most up-to-date equipment available. These include the only mock operating theatre in an English university and a cutting-edge radiography virtual clinical training facility, virtual ward and virtual case creator.
Virtual Case Creator
For pre-registration nurses and midwives, Virtual Case Creator software contains a range of scenarios to let you experience birthing situations and decide on appropriate interventions in a safe environment.
Hospital Ward
Our mock wards enable you to get a feel of what a ward is really like before you head out for your first placement. They contain ‘Sim Men’, which are demonstration dummies that develop ailments, allowing you to treat them as you would a real patient and build your confidence in reacting to the changing needs of patients.
The Hospital Ward can be adapted from a low care to high dependency care environment with the necessary monitoring equipment.
Part of the package is our SIM baby, SIM man and Mega code kid. There are also nursing manikins for fundamental skills teaching and various equipment to support essential skills teaching, such as blood pressure monitoring venepuncture and cannulation equipment.
Skills Practice and Care Enhancement facility
The SPACE (Skills Practice And Care Enhancement) learning facility lets you further practice the skills taught in class, at your own pace and convenience.
It is fully stocked with the specialist items and equipment needed for procedures such as taking blood pressure, giving an injection, abdominal examination of a pregnant woman and caring for ill babies in an incubator.
Biomedical Laboratories
We have recently installed new laboratory facilities to help you explore understand the scientific principles underpinning many of our courses. The physiology laboratory is equipped to help you learn about the way the human body works by performing investigative experiments. The biomedical science laboratory is undergoing an upgrade over the summer and will allow you to learn about anatomy, cellular processes, immunology and enzymology in a hands-on way that links directly to day-to-day health care.
Simulation Manikins
We have several Simulation men (SIM men) and Simulation babies (SIM babies) which are leading edge, anatomically correct manikins used for teaching specific techniques such as advanced adult and paediatric life support skills, acute and high dependency clinical skills, first aid and communication skills.
The SIM men and SIM baby manikins are complete with software, which is used to replicate real symptoms, and are enhanced by the manipulation of for example blood pressure, pulse and heart rate for extra realism. SIM Man can also “talk” to the students which adds another dimension to their use in teaching clinical skills and in simulation exercises.
Mary Seacole Library
The Seacole library, based at City South Campus, is one of the UK's largest specialist health education libraries. The state-of-the art facility offers an extensive range of range of information and reference materials set out in a relaxing environment, conducive to studying. There are comfortable seating areas, group study areas, a silent study area and private study rooms.
The Seacole building houses a large open access IT Suite which comprises of 96 PCs, full colour printers, photocopiers and scanners. Our PCs utilise the latest Intel i5 core technology, all with:
- Fast (unrestricted) internet connectivity
- Ability to save files to USB, DVD & CD
- Microsoft Office software
- Research and statistical software
- Storage space which can be accessed from any PC across the University and from home
Our PCs are also designed to support students who may have difficulties with reading and writing, featuring specialised software with zooming/magnification and screen reading capabilities, which may also be customised for individual student needs.
The IT Suite offers extended opening hours and is supported by a specialist Open Access Assistant during term time. In addition to the open access PCs within the IT Suite, there are 12 networked student PCs available within Seacole library.
Our staff
Stephanie Paget
Course Leader – MSc Nursing
Stephanie graduated from Birmingham City University with a BSc (hons) degree in Children’s Nursing in 2012. Post qualifying Stephanie went to work on the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at Birmingham Children’s Hospital as a staff nurse between 2012 and 2015. During this time Stephanie completed both her PICU Foundation Course and her PICU Specialist Course. Stephanie when working in PICU was also a team leader, clinical skills facilitator in addition to other specialist clinical skills such as hemofiltration.
More about Stephanie