| Program start date | Application deadline |
| 2023-09-25 | - |
Program Overview
Course Details
Nursing associates support registered nurses to ensure service users and their families receive effective, compassionate, safe and responsive nursing care in and across a wide range of health and care settings.
Your studies will balance practice learning experience at one of our partner NHS trusts with study at the University. Attending the University will complement your learning in the workplace, and support you to develop the core knowledge, skills, values and behaviours that are required to work with patients of all ages in a range of settings covering pre-conception to end of life. Our dynamic and multi-disciplinary course team will support you as you learn to deliver high-quality person-centred care that takes account of the perspectives and pathways of individuals, their families and carers. We’ll help you learn to provide effective support to the registered nurse in the assessment, planning, delivery and evaluation of care.
To become a nursing associate, you’ll need to develop a breadth of knowledge and a flexible, portable skill set that will enable you to serve local health populations. We’ll support you as you learn to work across a range of fields of nursing, such as children and young people, adults and older people, mental health and learning disability nursing.
Highlights
Key Features
Program Outline
The nursing associate role is a support role that sits alongside existing healthcare support workers and fully-qualified registered nurses to deliver hands-on care for patients. After successfully completing the foundation degree you’ll possess a range of transferable skills, such as study skills, communication and interpersonal skills, self-awareness and team working. During your studies, you’ll also become familiar with ideas such as reflective practice, managing stress and change management and their application to healthcare contexts, ready for your future employment as a nursing associate.
Once qualified and registered, you’ll be well-prepared to gain employment as a nursing associate and give care to people of all ages in a range of settings across health and social care. Like nurses and other health professionals, you may expand your scope of practice through further education and experience.
What can I do with this qualification?
The nursing associate is a stand-alone role in its own right. It offers a route into nursing and bridges the gap between senior healthcare assistants who hold a care certificate and registered, graduate nurses. As a nurse associate, you’ll work alongside care assistants and registered nurses to deliver hands-on care, focusing on ensuring patients continue to get the compassionate care they deserve.
As a nursing associate, you’ll work under the direction of fully qualified registered nurses. Following your training as a nursing associate, you’ll be qualified to undertake some of the duties that registered nurses undertake. If you wish to take on further responsibilities and your ambition is to become a registered nurse, you’ll be able to apply for further study in pre-registration nursing. You could consider programmes such as the University of Bolton’s BSc (Hons) Nursing (Adult) or BSc (Hons) Nursing (Children) and you may be eligible to apply for year 2 entry.
Alternative career options
Graduates can also use the qualification as a stepping-stone into a range of other careers. For some of these roles, both relevant experience and/or postgraduate study may be required. Some of these careers include: