Nursing is a challenging but rewarding career that'll change lives, including your own. As a mental health nurse you'll play your part in improving access to healthcare, wellbeing, social inclusion and quality of life.
Working in a variety of settings, including specialist and community services, and people's homes, mental health nurses provide focused health support to people of all ages.
£5,000 per year training grant is available for students along with an additional £1,000 per year grant because mental health nurses are in demand in the UK and worldwide. Further information is available on the NHS Business Services website.
Why UCS?
You'll learn from a passionate, enthusiastic, skilled and supportive team with a range of experience across all the many different aspects of mental health nursing, and other fields of nursing. As many of our staff are active researchers, your learning will be enriched by the very latest in best practice and clinical understanding.
This course has a strong practical focus, allowing you to gain competence carrying out the hands-on tasks you will perform in your career. About half your time will be spent on placements with our established partners. You will also have regular access to outstanding facilities including our Clinical Simulation Suite: an imitation ward where you will be able to develop your clinical expertise in a safe, instructive environment.
Based at our Taunton Campus, you will interact with and learn from other students from a range of health and social care courses. You will develop essential people skills as you work with patients and their families, as well as our partners on placements, in class and online.
Course Overview
Year one you will study:
Year two you will study:
Final year you will study:
Plus, an independent study module where you choose the area of focus within your field of nursing.
Nursing is a challenging but rewarding career that'll change lives, including your own. As a mental health nurse you'll play your part in improving access to healthcare, wellbeing, social inclusion and quality of life.
Working in a variety of settings, including specialist and community services, and people's homes, mental health nurses provide focused health support to people of all ages.
£5,000 per year training grant is available for students along with an additional £1,000 per year grant because mental health nurses are in demand in the UK and worldwide. Further information is available on the NHS Business Services website.
Why UCS?
You'll learn from a passionate, enthusiastic, skilled and supportive team with a range of experience across all the many different aspects of mental health nursing, and other fields of nursing. As many of our staff are active researchers, your learning will be enriched by the very latest in best practice and clinical understanding.
This course has a strong practical focus, allowing you to gain competence carrying out the hands-on tasks you will perform in your career. About half your time will be spent on placements with our established partners. You will also have regular access to outstanding facilities including our Clinical Simulation Suite: an imitation ward where you will be able to develop your clinical expertise in a safe, instructive environment.
Based at our Taunton Campus, you will interact with and learn from other students from a range of health and social care courses. You will develop essential people skills as you work with patients and their families, as well as our partners on placements, in class and online.
Course Overview
Year one you will study:
Year two you will study:
Final year you will study:
Plus, an independent study module where you choose the area of focus within your field of nursing.
Our philosophy of nurse education encompasses flexible, progressive, and innovative approaches ensuring you will be a caring, competent, and critically thinking nurse. Some of our approaches include experiential learning, enquiry and action-based learning, group work and face-to-face learning.
You will learn about the importance of your relationship as a nurse with both the service user and their family and friends. We will support you to develop the interpersonal skills you'll need to build therapeutic relationships with people in diverse cultural contexts.
Develop your expertise in healthcare systems, nursing management, and the sociology of health, wellness, and illness. Explore the latest research and evidence-based practice and learn to adapt and respond to changes in society and developments in care.
With a strong focus on building independent learning and research skills, the course also provides an excellent preparation for future professional development. With the help of distance learning and self-directed materials you will be supported to take responsibility for your own learning.
Assessment methods may include, but are not limited to:
Study time
The course includes attendance in classes and online directed learning. During the timetabled blocks of the course, you will study full time between 9:00 to 17:00, Monday to Friday, except bank holidays.
While you are on placement, you will be working full time (37.5 hours), participating in shifts over a 24-hour period, including nights and weekends. Your placements may take you anywhere across your chosen Primary Placement Area.
Placements
With two practice placements a year, you'll spend half the course applying your knowledge and building your professional skills working with people, their families and healthcare professionals in a range of settings.
University Centre Somerset has excellent links with our local employers, and placements are normally split between NHS roles and positions in private or voluntary sector organisations both in hospital and community settings.
You'll get a broad range of practice experiences, putting you in a strong position for future employment in either a community or hospital setting. In each placement setting you'll receive support and guidance from supervisors and assessors. An example of what this may look like can be seen below:
Year one (19 weeks)
Year two (19 weeks)
Final year (22 weeks)
Registered nurses are in demand across the UK and our graduates enter careers in a variety of roles for the NHS, private and voluntary sector employers in community and hospital settings.
You could go on to specialise in positions in hospitals, healthcare centres as a community nurse, in GP practices, schools, as a health visitor, or with patients in their own homes.
Once qualified you can also combine clinical practice with study on a post graduate course to specialise in a specific area. Progression could lead to senior positions such as consultant nurse, nurse specialist, researcher, or local or regional services manager.
*The university accepts a large number of UK and International Qualifications in place of IELTS. You can find details of acceptable tests and the required grades you will need in our English Language section. Please visit UWE Bristol’s English language requirements page.
If you don't meet the entry requirements of this course, you may be eligible for a one-year Access to HE Diploma, also offered at our Taunton campus.
Additional requirements
All applicants are required to complete:
*All information will be treated in confidence and only taken into account
when absolutely necessary.
Our contextual offer
Our contextual offer is a tariff reduction of 16 tariff points for all undergraduate degree courses and 8 tariff points for all foundation year courses below the standard entry tariff. This is applicable to home applicants only.
Further tariff information is available on our course pages.
Who's eligible for a contextual offer?
We will use the multiple equality measure (MEM). It brings together information on several equality dimensions for which large differences in the probability of progression into higher education exist.
These dimensions include:
We will also use UCAS’s widening access questions:
The course fee is £9250.00* per year of study.
For more information regarding course fees, please read our 'Fees and Funding' page.
*Fees are subject to review annually. The fees for existing students may be increased annually in line with the Retail Price Index.