Nursing Associate
Entry requirements
Minimum of one A2 level with minimum of 32 tariff points
Pass the Access plus GCSE English and Maths at grade 4 / C or above.
GCSE/National 4/National 5
Applicants should be educated to at least GCSE level, including GCSEs in Maths and English at grades 9-4/ A*-C or equivalent such as functional skills level 2 in Maths and English.
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
32 points
UCAS Tariff
Maximum of two qualifications at 16 tariff points each.
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About this course
**Fully accredited by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) providing eligibility for registration as a Nursing Associate on successful completion of the course (Registration is subject to meeting good health and character requirements and payment of a registration fee).**
- Well-established clinical placements, teaching and research links with local collaborating NHS trusts and other healthcare providers, such as private hospitals, hospices and community settings.
- Study locations in Coventry, London, Scarborough and Salisbury.
Development of the health and social care workforce is pivotal to building the capacity and capability needed to deliver compassionate, high-quality evidence-based care to a diverse and ageing population. This course gives you the opportunity to develop a range of practical skills and the underpinning knowledge to allow you to make a real difference to quality of life and care of people of all ages and in a wide range of healthcare settings.
The Nursing Associate foundation degree is designed to meet the educational requirements necessary for the nursing associate role, enabling successful graduates to register as a Nursing Associate with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), and work supporting registered nurses delivering hands-on care in a wide variety of clinical settings (Registration is subject to meeting good health and character requirements and payment of a registration fee. Further details about the registration fee, eligibility and process are available on the NMC website).
It also offers a pathway to other nursing roles, including that of a graduate nurse through progression onto a pre-registration programme. After successfully completing this course it may be possible to transfer on to the second year of a BSc Nursing degree, but this would depend on NMC requirements and standards and your chosen field of nursing, therefore this cannot be guaranteed.
Equal time and weighting is given to the practical and theoretical components of the course. The course is taught by experienced nurses and healthcare professionals who will support you in your journey to becoming an NMC-registered Nursing Associate.
Placements will take place with one of our collaborator settings, which will normally be in the same region as your chosen campus, however, to ensure you have a breadth of placement experiences, and to ensure that all required NMC experiences are covered, you may be required to travel to attend placements. We aim for placements to be allocated within 45 minutes drive of the Trust and do our best to minimise travel time for our students. For Coventry students this should take place within the Coventry and Warwickshire area. For Scarborough students this will be in the area of North Yorkshire and East Riding. London based students will have placements within the wider London area. Salisbury based students will be based in the Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust. Please be aware that due to potential restrictions and capacity, placement locations may change. In your placements you will be supernumerary (not counted in the staff numbers) and will have an allocated Practice Assessor and Practice Supervisor to facilitate and assess your learning in practice.
In response to a high demand for the nursing associate role, we offer a route on to this course at our Coventry, Scarborough and London campuses, as well as from Wiltshire College and University Centre in Salisbury. The course was developed in collaboration with health and social care employers in Coventry and Warwickshire, Scarborough, Salisbury and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London. Our practice learning collaborators provide clinical learning placements for students and input to the ongoing development and evaluation of the course.
Modules
Year One
On commencing the course, you will study two modules. This will be an introduction to science and a clinical skills module spanning 13 weeks before you start your first 10-week mandatory placement, which is sourced by the University. You will then undertake a module to develop more advanced clinical skills and underpinning knowledge before your second 10-week placement of year one.
Modules
Introduction to Nursing Science (20 credits – compulsory)
Foundation Skills for Nursing Care (20 credits – compulsory)
Foundations in Communication and Professional Practice (Practice Placement 1) (30 credits – compulsory)
Applied Nursing Science (20 credits – compulsory)
Promoting Health and Wellbeing and Preventing Ill Health (Practice Placement 2) (30 credits – compulsory)
Year Two
In year two, you will learn about the evidence base underpinning nursing care and develop your knowledge of drugs and therapies for all age groups and fields of nursing. This will equip you for your first clinical placement of year two. You will then go on to develop your knowledge of legal and ethical aspects of care and advance your teaching skills prior to your final 10-week clinical placement of year two. As in year one all placements are sourced by the University.
Modules
Therapeutic Approaches in Nursing Care (20 credits – compulsory)
Evidence-Based Nursing Practice (10 credits – compulsory)
Providing and Monitoring Safe Care (Practice Placement 3) (30 credits – compulsory)
Supporting Learning and Assessment (10 credits – compulsory)
Foundations in Legal and Ethical Aspects of Care (20 credits – compulsory)
Effective Teamwork and Transition to Nursing Associate (Practice Placement 4) (30 credits – compulsory)
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.
Assessment methods
A wide variety of assessment are used throughout the course with half of the assessments taking place in your clinical placement areas. All of the assessments are designed to integrate theory and practice and to build on previous learning experiences. As you will be working 30 hours each week on your university studies or placement, this has been taken into account during the scheduling of the assessments to ensure a balanced and manageable assessment load both within modules and for the duration of the course.
Assessments include case study-based essays, presentations, reflections, practical clinical examinations, teaching Service Users or peers, and exams such as drug knowledge and calculations. Resources such as interactive workbooks and online quizzes are provided to help you assess your own learning as well as preparing you for assessments. Compassionate and caring attitudes and values are central to the role and will be assessed throughout the course.
The Coventry University Group assessment strategy ensures that our courses are fairly assessed and allows us to monitor student progression towards achieving the intended learning outcomes.
Tuition fees
Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:
The Uni
Coventry University
Hudson Building
CU Scarborough
Salisbury Campus, Wiltshire College and University Centre
Salisbury Campus, Wiltshire College and University Centre
Salisbury Campus, Wiltshire College and University Centre
School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health
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