Nursing (Learning Disabilities) with Foundation Year

Choose a fulfilling career that changes lives. This accredited course paves the way for you to be a registered Learning Disabilities nurse, providing specialist healthcare and support to people with a learning disability, as well as their families and staff teams, to help them live a fulfilling life. If you’re caring and compassionate, with exceptional communication skills and a real passion for helping people, this degree is for you. This programme includes a Foundation Year before joining the full three-year degree.

A highly rewarding career choice

Learning disability nurses work to provide specialist healthcare and support to people with a learning disability, as well as their families and staff teams, to help them live a fulfilling life. They work in a range of settings, including people's homes, education, residential and community centres and hospitals.

This course is built around the ethos that everyone has a right to evidence-based care, whatever their background and circumstances. It equips you to excel as a confident, versatile and capable mental health nurse. This programme is a holistic learning experience, enabling students to become emotionally resilient and transformational Registered Nurses of the future. Students will complete a range of modules to develop the fundamental knowledge and skills for safe effective nursing practice where the interests of people using or needing nursing services are put first.

Students develop an in-depth and comprehensive understanding about their chosen field of practice and recognise the principles of nursing across all fields and across the lifespan. Modules provide the foundation for students to develop a compassionate professionalism whereby they are trusted in the care they provide.

How will you learn

Learning will be facilitated through a range of classroom-based activities, skills laboratories and by electronic means such as online learning, web-based training and technology-delivered instruction.

We help you develop an in-depth understanding of the demands and rewards of the role so that you are fully prepared to work with adult patients who have diverse, acute and chronic conditions. Our outstanding facilities include replica wards, counselling rooms and treatment rooms fully equipped with the latest clinical resources and our immersive suite, which offers a simulated environment to practise your skills in a realistic setting.

Opportunities and experiences

Drawing on our extensive links with the NHS and other local employers, you’ll hone your skills on a wide variety of placements across Derbyshire, including in hospitals, acute settings, community and voluntary organisations, and the independent sector. This is essential to your preparation for registration, taking up approximately half of your time on the course. You’ll take part in 24 hour care with shift patterns so you gain a genuine feel for the practicalities and demands of the profession.

Professionally accredited

Join a degree accredited by the Nursing and Midwifery Council. When you graduate, you’ll be eligible to register and practise as a nurse.

First class facilities

Our Derby campus offers outstanding facilities, including clinical skills suites built to professional standards, with replica wards, counselling rooms and treatment rooms fully equipped with the latest resources.

Careers and employability

On successful completion of this degree, you’ll be eligible to register with the NMC and go into practice as a nurse, as long as you meet the NMC's requirements. Our graduates have gone into hospital-based roles on a variety of wards, intensive care units, coronary care units, theatres and A&E departments. Others have secured posts within community teams, private hospitals, nursing homes, health and social care settings, and the voluntary sector. Many take up roles in settings where they gained experience on placement.