Pre-registration Mental Health Nursing MSc
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Course Summary
The MSc Pre-registration Nursing course allows you to gain a professional nurse qualification and register with the NMC.
The course provides you with the skills and knowledge to provide person-centred, compassionate care and is an exciting opportunity for graduates to undertake a professional qualification whilst studying for a Master’s degree.
This is a dynamic, interactive professional course which places the needs of individuals and their families at its centre. The Programme Team are committed to supporting students to realise their potential to become compassionate, competent and autonomous nurses, who are able to meet current and future healthcare demands.
The course is delivered by experienced registered nurses who have expertise in both teaching and research and a variety of clinical specialities, including all four fields of nursing across acute and community settings. The team work closely with local acute and community providers to ensure that the course remains contemporary.
What you’llStudy
Year 1 explores the requirements to become a 21st Century nurse, developing your skills and knowledge of field and generic nursing.
Module content:
The generic learning outcomes in this module will be applied to the students own field of practice through the use of case scenarios and field specific examples and discussion in field specific modules.
- Application of numeracy including weight, volume, drug calculations, interpretation of measurements and medicines management and administration and other activities related to the standards of proficiency for registered nurses;
- Use of SNAP numeracy assessment tool which allows students to increase their level of confidence and understanding around clinical numeracy. Each student will have their own unique SNAP account giving them access to a range of learning resources which include an assessment simulator, online tutorials and podcasts;
- Class based numeracy tutorials and scenarios, use of SNAP.
Module aims:
This module aims to consolidate previous learning in the Nursing programme related to numeracy and to enable students to achieve the required level of numeracy competency for entry on to the nursing register as required by Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2018) Standards for pre-registration nursing programmes. Part 3 of Realising professionalism: Standards for education and training section 4.6.
The module will include the baseline skills needed to calculate medicines, measurements and other areas as required by the standards of proficiency for registered nurses (2018).
Year 2 develops your leadership and supervision skills, focusing on your chosen field of nursing (Mental Health) and exploring complex care.
Module content:
The cross field content of this module is designed to enable students to meet the needs of service users and carers from all four fields of practice and as such the delivery will include application to all service user groups.
- Maintaining self-care including reflective practice, reasonable adjustments in practice (RAPP), emotional intelligence, resilience, healthy lifestyle choices and clinical supervision. Advocacy and challenging discrimination. Record keeping, confidentiality, privacy and dignity.
- Assessing lifestyle factors and supporting others to make informed choices to manage health challenges. Assessing motivation and capacity to promote wellbeing recognising the person’s capacity to be a partner in their care. Recognising and acting upon signs of deterioration in mental health and providing evidence based support and skills. Understanding the family in partnership when considering end of life care and supporting treatment and care preferences. Health needs assessments, Global practice experience.
- Working in partnership with service users, relatives, carers and other professionals to evaluate and monitor care effectiveness to readjust care plan goals. Using alternative communication strategies such as translator services to be able to provide people, families and carers with accurate information when providing treatment and care. Lived experience connectors. Maintaining clear and legible documentation and using digital technologies in care delivery. Initiate appropriate interventions after making informed judgements on commonly encountered presentations.
- Participate in nursing procedures including assessing skin status and hygiene and providing wound care including aseptic technique, product selection and drain management; nutritional assessment and artificial hydration and nutrition including insertion and removal of nasogastric tubes; assessment and promotion of self-management in bladder and bowel continence and removal and insertion of different urinary catheters in all genders; neurological observations and seizure management, supporting mobility and managing falls; respiratory assessment including peak flow, chest auscultation and administration of oxygen via different routes. Nasal and oral Suctioning techniques, blood glucose monitoring, cardiac assessment including ECG and infection prevention and control methods. Social prescribing practice.
- Interpretation of normal and abnormal blood profiles and venepuncture and cannulation skills. Managing transfusion of blood components, Recognising and treating sepsis, positive risk taking and risk aversion.
- Safe and effective discharge planning across services and caseloads, negotiation and advocacy of people and making reasonable adjustments to aid assessment, planning and delivery of care. Leadership and management in own field of nursing including advanced leadership and political understanding of the context of practice.
- Medicines management, application in practice of knowledge of pharmacology. Preparation and administration of medications. Accurate documentation for medicines management. Medicines calculations. Recognising and escalating concerns of harm from medication administration and errors, reporting adverse events and incidents using appropriate reporting methods.
Module aims:
To provide students with practice learning opportunities which provide a range of experiences across fields. The module will build on cross field and field specific skills for nursing. The learner will actively participate in and work towards increasing confidence and competence to provide care with minimal guidance.
Module content:
This module will integrate learning-to-learn, reflection and professional development into a series of linked sessions leading to personal and professional development, including the following:
- Critically exploring contemporary compassionate care agenda: to include notions of caring, multi-ethnicity, spirituality for example in end of life care, resilience and nursing fatigue.
- Critically applying collaborative working strategies to provide creative current and future solutions to enhance practice through an examination of historical and contemporary nursing practice.
- Critically applying multiple levels of evidence and reflective practice at level 7 to inform clinical and strategic decision making. The transition to level 7 study, critical writing, study skills, academic integrity.
- Challenging traditional perspectives of leadership through exploration of the ethico-legal framework and socio-political contexts of nursing as a profession.
Module aims:
Critically apply knowledge and skills gained throughout the module to evidence personal and professional development for the 21st century.
Module content:
The cross field content of this module is designed to enable students to meet the needs of service users and carers from all four fields of practice and as such the delivery will include examples and application to all service user groups.
- Strategic decision making for 21st century, the political impetus for strategic change 21st century healthcare. Local and national approaches towards quality and governance, operational frameworks for the improvement agenda.
- Supporting innovation: preparing the culture for innovation; creative approaches to service improvement for 21st century healthcare, managing teams, the use of power and change models.
- Developing leadership potential: Leadership theory and styles in order to manage group dynamics, positive and negative leadership traits and their impact upon collaborative working, using emotional intelligence to impact performance, compassionate leadership strategies.
- Developing a business case for innovation, critiquing evidence to support innovation, service user and stakeholder consideration.
- Using creative approaches to developing artefacts for service improvement, communication skills for pitching and promoting innovation, auditing and evaluating service improvements.
Module aims:
As part of the transition to registration, the module aims to develop the student’s critical appreciation of the steps involved in developing a proposal for strategic service improvement in order to enhance the delivery of care for the 21st century.
Module content:
The cross field content of this module is designed to enable students to meet the needs of service users and carers from all four fields of practice and as such the delivery will include examples and application to all service user groups.
- Transition to registration: developing a leadership role; intelligent kindness, compassionate leadership, change management; time management; prioritisation and delegation and accountability as applied to field nursing. Compare and contrast the paradoxical nature of leadership styles and qualities Leadership styles, role modelling
- Preparation to become practice supervisor, understanding standards for student supervision and assessment in a leadership and supervisor context.
- Revision of anatomy and physiology, relevant pathophysiology, homeostasis across field specific nursing and beyond.
- Consolidate understanding of pharmacological principles in order to become prescribing ready, completion of personal formulary. Use of BNF. Application of how illness affects pharmacology, adverse drug reactions, polypharmacy, Drug Interactions - Pharmacokinetic and Pharmaco-dynamic Interactions, prescribing errors and management of field specific issues. Individual patient variation including paediatrics and older people.
- Understanding the role of the nurse prescriber, developing consultation skills apply knowledge of pharmacology to the care of people, the role of generic, unlicensed, and off-label prescribing and the potential risks associated with these approaches to prescribing. Knowledge of how prescriptions can be generated, consent, concordance and adherence, duty of care in prescribing. Influences on prescribing including organisational and pharmaceutical companies. Preparation to progress to a prescribing qualification following registration.
Module aims:
As part of the transition to registration, the module aims to prepare the student to be practice ready in preparation for twenty first century nursing.
Module content:
The field content of this module is designed to enable students to meet the needs of service users and carers in their fields of practice and also deliver cross field care all service user groups.
- Maintaining self-care including reflective practice, reasonable adjustments in practice plan (RAPP), emotional intelligence, resilience, healthy lifestyle choices and clinical supervision. Advocacy and challenging discrimination. Record keeping, confidentiality, privacy and dignity, promoting professionalism in others. Mentoring and supervising others. Being a professional role model.
- Completing whole body assessment using different strategies and technologies to assist. Assessing capacity and making reasonable adjustments when a person lacks capacity. Referring to other health and social care professionals and services.
- Recognising deterioration in mental, physical, and emotional health and recognising vulnerability and reducing harm from others. Keeping accurate and legible records, symptom management with increasing complexity including pain, distress, anxiety and confusion. Working with families in partnership and using digital technologies to assist. Using advanced communication techniques and strategies.
- Participate in nursing procedures including assessing skin status and hygiene and providing wound care including aseptic technique, product selection and drain management, nutritional assessment and artificial hydration and nutrition including insertion and removal of nasogastric tubes, assessment and promotion of self-management in bladder and bowel continence and removal and insertion of different urinary catheters in all genders, neurological observations and seizure management, supporting mobility and managing falls, respiratory assessment including peak flow, chest auscultation and administration of oxygen via different routes. Nasal and oral Suctioning techniques, blood glucose monitoring, cardiac assessment including ECG and infection prevention and control methods. Social prescribing practice.
- Interpretation of normal and abnormal blood profiles and venepuncture and cannulation skills. Managing transfusion of blood components, Recognising and treating sepsis, positive risk taking and risk aversion.
- Safe and effective discharge planning across services and caseloads, negotiation and advocacy of people and making reasonable adjustments to aid assessment, planning and delivery of care. Leadership and management in own field of nursing including advanced leadership, commissioning and political understanding of the context of practice.
- Medicines management, application in practice of knowledge of pharmacology. Preparation and administration of medications. Accurate documentation for medicines management. Medicines calculations. Recognising and escalating concerns of harm from medication administration and errors, reporting adverse events and incidents using appropriate reporting methods.
Module aims:
To provide students with practice learning opportunities which provide a range of experiences across fields. The module will build on cross field and field specific skills for nursing. The learner will actively participate in and work towards increasing confidence and competence is able to provide care with minimal guidance.
Module content:
- Relevant anatomy and physiology, pathophysiology, homeostasis and the application to field specific nursing: field genomics, respiratory, cardiovascular, neurological, musculoskeletal, skin, endocrine, gastro intestinal and renal. Epidemiology and demography of field specific manifestations. Altered pathophysiology including signs of deterioration and sepsis. Example mental health: Revision of anatomy and physiology of the respiratory system including effects of smoking in the client group. Effects of inactivity and high levels of cardiovascular disease including premature death. High incidence of diabetes, weight gain and sexual dysfunction and understanding the underlying physiology and helpful interventions.
- Impact of ageing on field specific groups, altered pathophysiology and psychosocial factors affecting homeostasis, including physiological and psychosocial impact of pain, anxiety, stress and discomfort. Example mental health: positive symptom reduction in psychosis in older people, loneliness and isolation of people with mental illness, chronicity in severe mental illness, physiology of dementia.
- Advancing pharmacology field specific knowledge, introduction to and the impact of poly pharmacy, medication usage and treatments, continued completion of personal formulary, knowledge of pharmacology and the ability to recognise the effects of medicines, allergies, drug sensitivities, side effects, contra-indications, incompatibilities, adverse reactions, prescribing errors and over the counter medication usage in field specific nursing. Application of mental capacity in medicines management. Example Mental Health: compatibility of medicines used in mental health settings i.e. interaction of commonly prescribed anti-psychotics, anti-depressants and mood stabilisers with more commonly prescribed medicines in general population. Complexity of substance misuse including alcohol and the interaction with prescribed medicines (although more common in younger population). Consider education around legal highs and accessibility of drugs on line.
- Application of the principles of pharmacology and pharmacokinetics relating to a range of field specific conditions and related to management of interventions as applied to field.
Module aims:
To apply knowledge of human anatomy and physiology, principles of pharmacology and how these are applied in field specific nursing practice.
Module content:
The field content of this module is designed to enable students to meet the needs of service users and carers in their fields of practice and also deliver cross field care all service user groups.
- Definitions of person centred care & holistic care; historical context of person centred care. Models of person centred care, barriers to person centred care. Evidence based care planning; prioritisation of care. Physical & psychological development; theories of development; developments of self-esteem; identification of vulnerable groups; safeguarding. Co-morbidities; complex care; recognition and management of deteriorating patient; identify appropriate investigations and interventions.
- Communication – developing therapeutic relationships; communication tools and strategies; empowerment; capacity; MDT communication; appropriate relationships with service users, families, carers and MDT; documentation; handover & sharing of information; play, distraction, art & music; education. Recognition and management of risk – risk assessment tools; impact of human factors; hierarchy; role modelling; working across different clinical & professional services, integrated care .
- Application of public health to field and health promotion. Prevention of ill health; health inequalities; life experiences & choices. Socio-economic factors. Identification of vulnerable groups; safeguarding and abuse; lifestyle; environment. Stress and coping; resilience; use of the arts; mental capacity; advocacy; empowerment. Cross cultural perspectives & cultural competence; social policy; role models, brief interventions.
- Range of on mental, physical, behavioural and cognitive health conditions across the lifespan and in relation to own field specific conditions
- Discharge and transition planning – simple and complex discharge; inter & intra hospital transfer; transfer between teams; service transition across the lifespan; intra-agency team work and collaboration; accurate communication and documentation.
Module aims:
This module aims to explore person centred field nursing and will enable the learner to critically evaluate strategies to work effectively across the MDT / range of settings.
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Nursing at the University of Chester
Learning occurs in both University and clinical practice. In University you will be taught using lectures, seminars, simulation, tutorials and technology enhanced learning. 50% of learning occurs in clinical practice with a range of placements to meet the NMC proficiencies.
Assessments occur in both University and practice. A Practice Assessment Document is used in practice to measure NMC proficiencies. Examinations and coursework are used to assess theory.
Beyond the Classroom
There is an option to undertake a three-week negotiated practice learning experience in the course where students can have the option to explore global healthcare. Many students go to Africa and Asia for these experiences.
Entry Requirements
2:1 honours degree
An honours degree (2:1) is required. You are required to have Maths and English at GCSE C/4 or recognised level 2 equivalent. Pre-registration nursing programmes are three years in duration, so we require confirmation that you can meet 800 hours of appropriate health-related practice prior to entry. Please see additional guidance re: this. You will also require a satisfactory DBS and occupational health report.
Safeguarding / Suitability
All successful candidates who receive an offer of a place for this course and choose the University of Chester as their Firm choice will be required to undergo checks with regards to their suitability to practice.
A couple of months prior to admission to this course, the University will contact you to request that you complete a self-declaration form detailing any relevant convictions or other information that you believe may have an impact upon your ability to undertake work with children or vulnerable adults. You will also receive instructions on how to complete an online application for a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check through the University as a registered body, there will be a charge for this.
Please note that the University does not accept previous DBS checks from other registered bodies or the update service.
For details about the cost of the DBS and for further information please visit our DBS web pages.
2:2 honours degree
An honours degree (2:2) is required. You are required to have Maths and English at GCSE C/4 or recognised level 2 equivalent. Pre-registration nursing programmes are three years in duration, so we require confirmation that you can meet 800 hours of appropriate health-related practice prior to entry. Please see additional guidance regarding this. You will also require a satisfactory DBS and occupational health report.
English Language Requirements
Please note, applicants whose first language is not English must demonstrate they can meet the following English language criteria for this programme:
- IELTS 6.5 (with no less than 6.0 in all other bands)
- OET B- in Speaking, Listening, Reading and C in writing
- Degree completed in the UK with a 2:2
Fees and Funding
£9,250 per year (2024/25)
Guides to the fees for students who wish to commence postgraduate courses in the academic year 2024/25 are available to view on our Postgraduate Taught Programmes Fees page.
£14,750 per year (2024/25)
The tuition fees for international students studying Postgraduate programmes in 2024/25 are £14,750 per annum for this 2-year course.
The University of Chester offers generous international and merit-based scholarships for postgraduate study, providing a significant reduction to the published headline tuition fee. You will automatically be considered for these scholarships when your application is reviewed, and any award given will be stated on your offer letter.
For more information, go to our International Fees, Scholarship and Finance section.
Irish Nationals living in the UK or ROI are treated as Home students for Tuition Fee Purposes.
Fees for 2025/26 are to be confirmed.
Your course will involve additional costs not covered by your tuition fees. This may include books, printing, photocopying, educational stationery and related materials, specialist clothing, travel to placements, optional field trips and software. Compulsory field trips are covered by your tuition fees.
If you are living away from home during your time at university, you will need to cover costs such as accommodation, food, travel and bills.
There will be a requirement to travel to clinical placements. Health Education England provide financial support for this. Please visit their website for additional information.
The University of Chester supports fair access for students who may need additional support through a range of bursaries and scholarships.
Full details, as well as terms and conditions for all bursaries and scholarships can be found on the Fees & Finance section of our website.
Your future Career
Job prospects
This course prepares you to work as a registered nurse in the field of Mental Health Nursing and allows you to register with the NMC (an internationally recognised regulator for nursing). You will be able to work in a range of healthcare settings as a Band 5 nurse.
Careers service
The University has an award-winning Careers and Employability service which provides a variety of employability-enhancing experiences; through the curriculum, through employer contact, tailored group sessions, individual information, advice and guidance.
Careers and Employability aims to deliver a service which is inclusive, impartial, welcoming, informed and tailored to your personal goals and aspirations, to enable you to develop as an individual and contribute to the business and community in which you will live and work.
We are here to help you plan your future, make the most of your time at University and to enhance your employability. We provide access to part-time jobs, extra-curricular employability-enhancing workshops and offer practical one-to-one help with career planning, including help with CVs, applications and mock interviews. We also deliver group sessions on career planning within each course and we have a wide range of extensive information covering graduate jobs .