BSc (Hons) Adult Nursing with Foundation Year

Foundation Year: Building a Bridge to Your Nursing Degree

This preparatory year ensures you have the core scientific knowledge and academic skills to succeed in your nursing studies.

• Professional and Academic Skills: Master the fundamentals of university-level work, including academic writing, effective research, critical thinking, and presenting your ideas with confidence.

• Personal and Professional Development Planning: Learn to reflect on your own progress, set goals, and understand the professional behaviours expected in a healthcare environment.

• Human Physiology and Pathophysiology: Gain an essential understanding of how the healthy human body works and what happens at a biological level during illness and disease.

• Understanding Mental Health and Wellbeing: Explore the key concepts of mental health, developing an appreciation for holistic care that supports both the mind and body.

• Exploring Health and Social Care: Discover the structure and functions of the UK’s health and social care landscape, learning how different services work together to support patients.

• Values, Ethics and Working with Diversity: Investigate the core ethical principles that guide healthcare and learn to provide compassionate, non-judgemental care to people from all backgrounds.

Year 1: The Foundations of Nursing Practice

You will learn the fundamental skills and knowledge that every adult nurse needs, combining campus learning with your first clinical placements.

• Being an Accountable Professional: Understand the professional code and ethical responsibilities laid out by the NMC, ensuring you practise with safety and integrity.

• Foundations of Human Science for Nursing Practice: Apply your knowledge of anatomy and physiology directly to nursing, understanding how the body responds to care and treatment.

• Introduction to Practical Nursing Skills: Learn essential clinical skills in our simulation suites, from taking vital signs and wound care to administering basic life support.

• Assessing, Planning and Providing Person-Centred Care: Master the core nursing process: how to assess a patient’s needs, plan their care collaboratively, and deliver it effectively.

• Promoting Health and Preventing Ill Health: Learn how to empower patients and communities to make healthier lifestyle choices, moving beyond treatment to focus on prevention.

• Evidence-based Practice for Nursing: Develop the skills to find, read, and apply the latest research to ensure the care you provide is based on the best available evidence.

Year 2: Developing Skills for Complex Care

You will build on your foundational skills, taking on more responsibility and learning to manage patients with more complex, long-term conditions.

Core Modules:

• Assessing and Managing Care Across the Lifespan: Deepen your assessment skills to provide effective care for adults of all ages, from young adults to those in later life with chronic conditions.

• Pharmacology and Medicines Management: Gain a thorough understanding of how medications work and develop the competence to administer them safely and effectively.

• Applied Human Science for Nursing Practice: Explore the science behind more complex health challenges and their impact on the human body, linking biology directly to clinical decision-making.

• Nursing Practice Placement 2: Undertake extended placements to consolidate your skills, working with greater autonomy under the supervision of experienced practitioners.

Optional Component:

• Elective Placement Experience: You will have an opportunity to undertake an elective placement in a specialist area of your choice, allowing you to explore a potential career path in fields such as district nursing, urgent care, or a specialist hospital service.

Year 3: Leadership and Transition to Registered Practice

Your final year focuses on preparing you for registration, developing your leadership skills and your ability to manage complex, acute care situations.

Core Modules:

• Evidence-Based Practice Project (Dissertation): Plan and conduct a significant research or evidence-based practice project on a topic relevant to adult nursing. This allows you to explore an area of passion in-depth and contributes to improving patient care.

• Enhanced and Complex Care in Adult Nursing: Develop the high-level skills needed to care for critically ill patients and those with multiple, complex health needs, learning to make sound clinical judgements under pressure.

• Leadership, Management and Team Working for Practice: Learn how to lead a healthcare team, manage a caseload, and supervise others, preparing you to be a leader and a role model in your future career.

• Nursing Practice Placement 3 (Final Placement): Your final, extensive placement where you will manage your own caseload and demonstrate you are ready to transition from student to Registered Nurse.

Optional Focus:

• Specialist Pathway Focus: Your choice of dissertation topic and final placement allows you to begin creating a specialist profile, enabling you to focus on areas that interest you most, such as cardiology, palliative care, or theatre nursing.