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Nursing (Pre-Registration) Learning Disability MSc

2024-25 (also available for 2025-26)

Start date

20 January 2025

Duration

2 years full-time

Places available (subject to change)

15

About the course

Reasons to study

  1. For those who have studied a suitable undergraduate degree this course fast tracks you to become a registered nurse in two years rather than three.
  2. You will practice and develop your skills through a variety of clinical placements in a range of statutory, private and voluntary services, in order to prepare you to pursue your career.
  3. You will hear first-hand experiences and viewpoints from service users and carers, who are part of the Public Partnership Group to enhance your learning.

The course provides the opportunity for those who have studied an undergraduate degree to undertake a two-year full-time Master’s course and upon successful completion receive eligibility for registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). The course helps you to develop the skills required, in order to become a confident, competent and compassionate learning disability nurse in a rapidly changing health and social care environment.

  • The course will assist you to develop both practical and theoretical skills, in order to achieve your full potential as a learning disability nurse and meet the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Standards. These include professional values, communication and interpersonal skills, nursing practice and decision making, and leadership, management and team working. Your practice learning will be field specific to meet a wide range of physical, psychological and social needs.
  • This challenging and intensive course comprises 50% theory and 50% practice, where you will undertake placements in a range of settings. The course consists of two years, each comprising of a number of compulsory modules, where you will have the opportunity to study alongside students from the other fields of nursing.
  • The University has strong links with NHS Trusts within the West Yorkshire and wider region, as well as private organisations who offer services to people with a learning disability
  • You will be taught by Lecturers who are committed and passionate, as well as practice supervisors and assessors who are research active and have extensive and varied experience in learning disability nursing.
  • Teaching takes place in innovative and contemporary teaching and learning environments, including a fully equipped simulated ward.
  • Student support will be given from personal tutors and year leaders, as well as academic learning support and experienced practice supervisors and assessors.

Being a learning disability nurse, requires patience, empathy, and listening skills. You will also have the opportunity to develop a high level of professional, inter-personal, communication, clinical, and technical skills to help improve the quality of life of people with a learning disability and their ability to live as independently as possible. You will study how to work in partnership with service users, their families, carers and other professionals to promote health and wellbeing.

Students studying this course may be eligible to receive a non-repayable grant of at least £5,000 each year. Further information is available on the NHS Learning Support Fund Website.

Course detail

Becoming a professional - Learning Disability Nursing

This module involves exploring your development as a professional, examining your personal and professional attitudes and beliefs, as well as relating these to your future professional role as a learning disability nurse. You will gain an understanding about how you can develop as a learner and maintain your physical and mental health, so you are able to promote and support people with learning disabilities with their health. You will also learn how to manage the transition to university and explore ethical and professional codes underpinning learning disability nursing.

Developing critical knowledge and skills in Learning Disability Nursing

This module builds on knowledge and skills developed in stage one. You will expand your range of assessment skills and apply them to more complex learning disability care encounters. Using your knowledge you will recognise deterioration and begin to identify appropriate interventions to meet the care needs for people with a range of complex physical, mental health and cognitive care needs. You will plan care needs and begin to formulate care plans to meet the needs of individuals and groups of people in your care.

Developing research knowledge and evidence for Learning Disability Nursing practice

This module builds on the ‘Understanding knowledge and evidence for nursing’ module in year 1, by introducing you to designing research studies, including literature reviews and empirical studies. You will have the opportunity to develop knowledge and skills of research methods and design preparing you to undertake a study relevant to learning disability nursing in year 2. You will learn about research ethics, data collection, analysis and research approaches including qualitative, qualitative and mixed method studies, literature reviews undertaken systematically, systematic reviews and audits.

Introduction to Learning Disability Nursing

This module provides the opportunity for you to develop the fundamental knowledge and skills required to have a critical understanding of theory and practice. This will assist you in providing effective person centred support to people with a range of physical, mental and cognitive needs, with a specific focus on people who have a learning disability. You will integrate knowledge of anatomy and physiology with psychology, sociology and other relevant disciplines to explore factors that impact on an individual’s health across the lifespan. You will also have the opportunity to develop skills comprising of systematic assessments to inform intervention, including medicines administration and pharmacology.

Understanding knowledge and evidence for nursing

This module introduces you to the nature of knowledge and how it supports evidenced-based practice. You will learn about how to search for and read evidence to identify its value and relevance to nursing practice. You will explore how to evaluate published research and will be introduced to the concept of ethics within healthcare research. You’ll also have the opportunity to develop and use a variety of transferable skills including literature searching, critical appraisal of evidence and application of evidence to your own and the nursing practice of others.

Nursing Practice 1

This module is the first practice module. You will be placed in clinical areas to undertake clinical practice and practice assessments. Providing further opportunity to develop the fundamental skills of nursing practice including personal hygiene, infection control, undertaking observations and holistic patient assessments and care. You will complete a practice learning experience, where you will put the theory you have learnt into practice.

Entry requirements

You must have the following:

  • An Honours degree (2:2 or above) and work experience relevant to the programme to be followed. Applicants with an Honours degree and considerable relevant experience may also be considered if they can demonstrate their ability to study at Masters level.
  • If successful at interview, applicants are required to successfully demonstrate that they have completed 550 hours of theory through studying/reading and a minimum of 700 hours of practice before they start the course using a Pre-Entry Portfolio. Students will have 700 hours of practice verified in the Pre-Entry Portfolio. A broad range of experience can be used for this including observations and reading. Your experience and learning may have occurred outside a typical 'practice' area but may still be applicable, for example you may have worked in a public-facing professional role in which you have demonstrated values relating to the professional standards that registered nurses must uphold (Nursing & Midwifery Council 2018).

If your first language is not English, you will need to meet the minimum requirements of an English Language qualification. The minimum for IELTS is 6.5 overall with no element lower than 6.0, or equivalent. Read more about the University’s entry requirements for students outside of the UK on our Where are you from information pages.

If you hold any other qualifications which are not listed, please contact us before applying for this course.

Offers will be subject to an interview, an Occupational Health assessment and references. Please note all the information provided in support of your application may be checked and must be verifiable as a true record.

You also need satisfactory enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), occupational health clearances and RPL (NMC) evidence prior to registration on the course. We arrange these as part of the application process. You will be required to sign a self-declaration at the start of each year and at the end of the course. All police contact during the course must be reported to the course leader as a matter of urgency and may lead to suspension or termination. We will request an Overseas Police Check if you have lived in a country outside of the UK for 6 months or more (whether continuously or in total) in the last 10 years before applying to us and whilst aged 18 or over.

Placement providers for this course may require you to have received a number of vaccinations, unless medically exempt, and provide evidence of these. As a student on a course with a clinical or healthcare placement, we strongly recommend that you complete any courses of vaccinations required under current guidelines for your future profession. Failure to do so may result in your inability to undertake a placement in certain clinical settings, therefore impacting upon your academic progression, and may result in academic failure of your course.

In addition to the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) required for entry to the course, you may also be eligible to gain recognition for your prior learning towards the academic credit on this course. Please note that the course you are applying for is regulated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) which allows a maximum of 50% of credits for the award to be conferred through recognition of prior learning.

Please note: there are a limited number of places on the course and the demand is generally high, therefore we may not interview all applicants who meet the required entry criteria due to this competitive process.

Placements


During the course you will undertake a number of practice learning experiences in a diverse range of health and social care settings, reflecting the diversity of services accessed by people with a learning disability. This may include community teams, nursing and residential homes, supported living services, schools, short breaks services, day opportunities or hospitals and clinics. You may also have the opportunity to work within forensic services, prisons, palliative care and youth offending services. Throughout your practical experiences you will be supported, supervised and assessed by a qualified nurse or other suitably qualified professional to ensure you receive all the expert help and advice you need.

To allow you the broadest professional experience possible, practice experiences are generally offered across West Yorkshire and beyond, covering 24-hour care including evening, weekend and occasional night-shifts. Your placement areas could be anywhere within the wider Calderdale, Kirklees, and Wakefield metropolitan districts of West Yorkshire. You need to think very carefully about how you’ll travel across this region for your placements with awareness that when in placement you’ll often be required to start a shift at 7.00am and may not finish until 8.00pm. Your placements will also incorporate night-shift and weekend working. For more information visit our placements page. For more information visit our placements page.

Student support

At the University of Huddersfield, you will find support networks and services to help you get ahead in your studies and social life. Whether you study at undergraduate or postgraduate level, you will soon discover that you are never far away from our dedicated staff and resources to help you to navigate through your personal student journey. Find out more about all our support services.

A wide range of resources are also offered within the School of Human and Health Sciences, which provides you with support in a variety of areas. These include:

Student Hub: a one stop shop for students, studying within the School. Their services include offering advice on extenuating circumstances, extension requests, course progression, suspension and welfare support, organising appointments with academic staff and signposting to other support networks.

Academic Skills Development Team: support students to develop their academic skills and build their confidence in order to improve their grades. The team provide support with academic skills including essay writing, being critical, reflective writing, numeracy, research skills, presentations and group work skills; as well as personal development for example time management.

Learning Technology Support Unit: helps students with any problems they experience with the University’s Brightspace Learning System, including logging on or difficulties experienced when accessing and using modules, and with the PebblePad platform, which is used by students when they go out on placements.

Important information

We will always try to deliver your course as described on this web page. However, sometimes we may have to make changes as set out below.

Changes to a course you have applied for

If we propose to make a major change to a course that you are holding an offer for, then we will tell you as soon as possible so that you can decide whether to withdraw your application prior to enrolment.

Cancellation of a course you have applied for

Although we always try and run all of the course we offer, we may occasionally have to withdraw a course you have applied for or combine your programme with another programme if we consider this reasonably necessary to ensure a good student experience, for example if there are not enough applicants to ensure you have a good learning experience. Where this is the case we will notify you as soon as reasonably possible and we will contact you to discuss other suitable courses with us we can transfer your application to. If we notify you that the course you have applied to has been withdrawn or combined, and you do not wish to transfer to another course with us, you may cancel your application and we will refund you any deposits or fees you have paid to us.

Changes to your course after you enrol as a student

We will always try to deliver your course and other services as described. However, sometimes we may have to make changes as set out below:

Changes to option modules

Where your course allows you to choose modules from a range of options, we will review these each year and change them to reflect the expertise of our staff, current trends in research and as a result of student feedback or demand for certain modules. We will always ensure that you have a range of options to choose from and we will let you know in good time the options available for you to choose for the following year.

Major changes

We will only make major changes to the core curriculum of a course or to our services if it is necessary for us to do so and provided such changes are reasonable. A major change in this context is a change that materially changes the services available to you; or the outcomes, or a significant part, of your course, such as the nature of the award or a substantial change to module content, teaching days (part time provision), classes, type of delivery or assessment of the core curriculum.

For example, it may be necessary to make a major change to reflect changes in the law or the requirements of the University’s regulators; to meet the latest requirements of a commissioning or accrediting body; to improve the quality of educational provision; in response to student, examiners’ or other course evaluators’ feedback; and/or to reflect academic or professional changes within subject areas. Major changes may also be necessary because of circumstances outside our reasonable control, such as a key member of staff leaving the University or being unable to teach, where they have a particular specialism that can’t be adequately covered by other members of staff; or due to damage or interruption to buildings, facilities or equipment.

Major changes would usually be made with effect from the next academic year, but this may not always be the case. We will notify you as soon as possible should we need to make a major change and will carry out suitable consultation with affected students. If you reasonably believe that the proposed change will cause you detriment or hardship we will, if appropriate, work with you to try to reduce the adverse effect on you or find an appropriate solution. Where an appropriate solution cannot be found and you contact us in writing before the change takes effect you can cancel your registration and withdraw from the University without liability to the University for future tuition fees. We will provide reasonable support to assist you with transferring to another university if you wish to do so.

Termination of course

In exceptional circumstances, we may, for reasons outside of our control, be forced to discontinue or suspend your course. Where this is the case, a formal exit strategy will be followed and we will notify you as soon as possible about what your options are, which may include transferring to a suitable replacement course for which you are qualified, being provided with individual teaching to complete the award for which you were registered, or claiming an interim award and exiting the University. If you do not wish to take up any of the options that are made available to you, then you can cancel your registration and withdraw from the course without liability to the University for future tuition fees and you will be entitled to a refund of all course fees paid to date. We will provide reasonable support to assist you with transferring to another university if you wish to do so.

When you enrol as a student of the University, your study and time with us will be governed by a framework of regulations, policies and procedures, which form the basis of your agreement with us. These include regulations regarding the assessment of your course, academic integrity, your conduct (including attendance) and disciplinary procedure, fees and finance and compliance with visa requirements (where relevant). It is important that you familiarise yourself with these as you will be asked to agree to abide by them when you join us as a student. You will find a guide to the key terms here, along with the Student Protection Plan, where you will also find links to the full text of each of the regulations, policies and procedures referred to. You should read these carefully before you enrol. Please note that this information is subject to change and you are advised to check our website regularly for any changes before you enrol at the University. A person who is not party to this agreement shall not have any rights under or in connection with it. Only you and the University shall have any right to enforce or rely on the agreement.

The Office for Students (OfS) is the principal regulator for the University.

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