Registered Nurse Degree Apprenticeship (Mental Health) BSc (Hons)

Core modules

• Therapeutic engagement in mental health nursing

  We’ll develop you as a therapeutic practitioner, championing the acquisition of skills and knowledge around therapeutic engagement and evidence based interventions within mental health care across the life course. You’ll engage with service users and their carers in care planning and contemporary therapeutic interventions. You’ll learn that interventions need to be timely, appropriate and responsive to maximise the benefits and promote on-going recovery. You’ll explore how practice-based evidence can both challenge and assist clinical decision making. You’ll learn about role of the nurse in supporting and maintaining growth and change in people recovering from a range of mental health symptoms and conditions. We’ll support you to develop advanced skills in person–centred care You’ll consider therapeutic strategies/interventions and psychoeducation for people living with mental health problems in relation to complex conditions such as, dementia, long term mental ill health, child and adolescent mental health issues, perinatal mental health and people with Learning Disability and Mental Health services. We’ll enhance your competence in planning recovery focused care.

• Developing Mental Health Nursing Practice 2

  In this practice module you’ll consolidate the learning that took place in the theory module, as well as develop your communication and physical skills from previous placements. Practice learning will be in a mental health setting where you’ll be working alongside a person experiencing mental health distress and take a whole person approach. Mental health service users also experience physical illness and you’ll be expected to care for patients with these needs. Managing seizures, tracheostomy care, IV fluid management, venepuncture and cannulation, neuro-observations, cardiac monitoring and surgical care are amongst some of the skills that you’ll practise in the skills lab. You’ll be supported to practise with increased confidence as you progress through your placement and will have the opportunity to work alongside health care teams and Practice Supervisors who will support you in developing new knowledge and skills. You’ll be supported by Practice Supervisors and assessment will be undertaken by a Practice Assessor who will maintain contact with an Academic Assessor (an academic staff member from ARU). Confirmation will be required that you have actively participated in care (with minimal guidance) and are performing with increasing confidence and competence.

• Nurses as Future Leaders

  We’ll encourage you to develop and realise your role as an accountable and responsible practitioner, embracing the role of leading and managing the planning and organisation of high-quality, multi-disciplinary care. Develop your skills of self-awareness, self-compassion, emotional intelligence, resilience, team building, motivating and coaching others as you learn to lead teams. These mechanisms will ensure that you begin to develop a sense of professional identity and values. You’ll consider clinical decision making and the tools to support this, techniques to resolve conflicts and manage complaints. You’ll explore root cause analysis to support practice- based decisions and quality assurance mechanisms such as, clinical governance, standard setting, and the use of audits. Supporting patient safety, you’ll learn the importance of whistleblowing, and highlighting and responding to poor and sub-standard practice. You’ll be supported in interview preparation technique and developing a professional profile and Curriculum Vitae, in preparation for applying for your first job as a qualified nurse.

• Leading and Co-ordinating Care with Confidence

  We’ll support your transition to an autonomous practitioner in readiness for joining the Nursing and Midwifery Council register. You’ll practise with increased confidence and competence as you progress through your placement and will continue to have the opportunity to work alongside health care teams and practice supervisors. You’ll continue to practise and develop your communication and relationship skills, and a range of physical skills. You’ll enhance your skills around accountability, professionalism, assessment and care planning, providing and evaluating care, leading and managing nursing care, working in teams and improving safety and quality of care. By the end of your final placement, you’ll supervise and teach a junior learner/colleague in practice and organise and manage the care for a group/caseload of people with complex care needs. You’ll also complete a summative Medicines Management Assessment.

• Undergraduate Major Project: Becoming an Independent Practitioner

  You’ll be supported to transition from student nurse to a qualified practitioner, ready to face the challenges in the modern health care setting. This involves adjusting to a new and challenging role, accepting additional and different responsibilities and further developing the complex skills required of a registered nurse. To improve the patient experience is one of the most rewarding aspects of a nurse’s role and requires insight, leadership, and understanding of evidence, resources, teamwork and planning. You’ll have the opportunity to review a wide range of literature to seek evidence to improve the patient experience and propose a plan for an innovative service improvement. Your service improvement plan will evidence consideration for any physical, human and financial constraints associated with the development that you have explored. Through this you’ll demonstrate intellectual flexibility and creative capability, in readiness for employment in the health care environment.

• Medicines Calculations for Safe Practice 3

  Patient safety is at the heart of nursing and it is a requirement of the professional regulator (the Nursing and Midwifery Council) that by the point of entry to register, nurses must demonstrate competency in numeracy skills in the safe administration of drugs (NMC, 2018). This includes being competent in basic medicines calculations relating to: tablets and capsules, liquid medicines, injections, and IV infusions. Safe Medicate is an online learning and assessment package focusing on medicines calculations. A professional requirement of the course is that you become proficient in medicine calculations. You’ll undertake this online medicine calculations module which offers the opportunity for unlimited practice related to a variety of medicine calculations. You’ll be required to undertake a minimum of six formative assessments prior to the summative assessment. When you take your exam in your third year, you’ll be required to get a pass mark of 100%.