The University of Chester and the Nursing and Midwifery Council have endorsed the Department of Health to run a new Bachelors and Masters in Nursing (BN/MN) degree programme from September 2012. In future it will be possible to study both the Adult and Mental Health branches of nurse education at both Bachelors and Masters levels in the Isle of Man.
The endorsement panel commended the close collaboration and linkages between the Island’s Health and Social Care Teaching Team and their colleagues at the University of Chester where the programme has already been validated for delivery. They found the connections between the team at Keyll Darree at Noble’s Hospital and the academic and administrative staff at the Faculty of Health and Social Care in Chester to be excellent and well-integrated.
They also commended the strong relationship between the Teaching Team and the Chief Nurse, Bev Critchlow which ensures a close working partnership between the academic and the practical aspects of the programme.
Finally, all aspects of student support were commended with students having particularly mentioned the high quality library resources available at the Department of Health’s Education and Training Centre – Keyll Darree.
Minister for Health, David Anderson MHK congratulated the Learning Team: “I am delighted that we’ve not only received formal endorsement for our Nurse Education programme, but a glowing endorsement at that. The new programme sees the Department move from Bachelor of Science degrees to Bachelor and Master of Nursing Degrees, which emphasises the professional nature of the programme and continues to show the development of nursing as a rigorous academic qualification. All new nurses are now required to go down the degree path, and we can offer these training and education opportunities on-Island which is an attractive proposition to many who would prefer to train at home in their local community. It also ensures the long term stability of our future nursing workforce by nurturing home grown talent. My thanks go to the entire team within the Department who have made this possible and for developing such a worthwhile and exciting new curriculum for the coming years.”
Pre-registration nurse education sees successful candidates achieve a Bachelors or Masters degree at the end of the period of study, as well as professional registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council. The courses have shared modules where the adult and mental health branches study together and field specific modules where they are with their fellow branch students (the other two fields of nursing - learning disabilities nursing and children’s nursing - are not currently available on-Island). The degrees involve both academic and practical training, with a minimum of 2,300 hours in practice with qualified mentors.
On-Island nurse education began in October 2000, and since then 113 students have gone on to become newly qualified nurses.
Photo caption: DH Teaching Team, left – right: Viky Ridgeway, Julie Williams, Donna hart, Mike Brownsell, John Struthers, Julie Bailey-McHale, and Ber Devlin.
