Course Enquiries - UK
Tel: 0207 815 7500
Mode: Full-time
Children's nurses care for children and young people from birth to 18 years old in hospital and in the community. Children and young people can present with a range of conditions, from birth defects, accidents and injuries, to life-limiting or critical illnesses or which can result in the death of a child. Children's nurses work in partnership with the child/young person, their parents and carers, involving them in the planning and delivery of their child's care and treatment. Children's nurses, in collaboration with other professionals, strive to promote health in children and young people to ensure they enter into adulthood in good health.
This innovative and intensive two-year course aimed at students with an existing degree (2:2 or above) will equip you with the knowledge and skills to assess and manage the nursing care needs of children and families, including those with acute and long-term conditions. The course will also develop your abilities to consider the wider aspects influencing children's health needs, preparing you for future leadership in a changing and challenging health care system.
You'll experience a variety of clinical settings such as NHS acute Trusts, community placements, independent sector and voluntary sector organisations. Practice experience is gained in several world-renowned central and outer London hospitals including:
You will be allocated one of these hospitals as your host Trust during the course.
Success on this course makes you eligible to register as a children's nurse with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).
By completing a dissertation (an extended and independent piece of written research) following graduation as a registered nurse you'll be able to gain a masters. Students who successfully complete the PgDip RN course have up to four years to complete the dissertation module via part time study.
Mode | Duration | Start date | Location |
---|---|---|---|
Mode Full-time |
Duration 2 years |
Start Date September |
Location
Southwark Campus
|
Some compulsory skills sessions may take place in the evening.
You will be taught separately from the three-year undergraduate students and will study the following:
Day-to-day duties of a children's nurse are varied; from administering drugs and injections, recording observations on vital signs such as pulse and temperature, to explaining treatments and procedures to gain consent from parents/guardians.
With experience, there are multiple opportunities for specialisation as your career progresses – such as: counselling, intensive care, cancer care, child protection, ambulatory care, orthopaedics and asthma.
Hours can be demanding for paediatric nurses. Long shifts, unsocial hours and possibly being called to work at the last minute are all common. A children's nurse starts on a salary around £24,000. However, with career progression and developed experience this can extend to well over £50,000. (Prospects)
All graduates are offered the opportunity to apply for employment with the NHS Trusts and hospitals where they gained experience during training when posts are available. The course has an excellent record in graduate employment, including working overseas, and covering a range of qualified nurse positions.
Successful graduates of the PgDip can top-up to an MSc in one year and will be qualified to study a range of further specialist postgraduate pathways. With additional experience, advanced practice is available at masters level with the potential to progress to doctorate studies. Find out more about professional development opportunities through our online CPPD prospectus.
We are University of the Year for Graduate Employment for the second year in a row - The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2018, 2019.
At LSBU, we want to set you up for a successful career. During your studies – and for two years after you graduate – you’ll have access to our Employability Service, which includes:
Our Student Enterprise team can also help you start your own business and develop valuable entrepreneurial skills.
Children's nurses work in a child-centred and multi-professional team, which is reflected in the variety of people who contribute to the course. Expert speakers include service users, such as parents and charitable organisations, expert practitioners and other lead professionals in child health and children's nursing.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council regulates nurses and midwives in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Islands.
During the course you will spend 50% of your time involved in academic study and 50% in clinical practice within a broad variety of healthcare settings. A clinical practice placement allows you to put theory into practice by working with a range of health professionals in clinical situations to develop the skills, knowledge and experience required to become a competent nurse. Although sometimes initially challenging, practice learning is one of the most interesting and exciting aspects of learning to be a nurse.
LSBU is affiliated with the top teaching hospitals and Trusts in London, including Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH). At LSBU you will experience a variety of clinical settings such as NHS acute Trusts, community placements, independent sector and voluntary sector organisations. You will also undergo a placement within the community.
We're proud to partner with:
Placements are spread over the two years:
Your initial placements are designed to introduce you to working in a professional setting and to develop essential care and basic assessment skills, infection control and learn about safeguarding vulnerable people.
You will then build on the experience gained from Year one and will begin to take on more responsibility, progressing your clinical reasoning skills and begin to look after small groups of patients making confident, proactive decisions for their health and management with less supervision.
You will also have the opportunity to choose a four week elective placement in which you can pick a speciality (e.g. working with Clinical Nurse Specialists, specialist services or independent and 3rd sector providers), or a different context of care (e.g. prison, private health care facility, social care, charity, hospice etc.), or a lived experience of a certain condition (e.g. charity work, carer shadowing, etc.) During your final year, you will require less supervision and will be responsible for a small group of patients.
Whilst in the clinical placement we ensure our nursing students receive continuous support and guidance from a dedicated mentor and practice learning teams made up of lecturers and practitioners.
Find out more about nursing placements through our student and graduate testimonials.
We have two Children's skills laboratories which are set up like nursing wards. The skills labs are used by all student nurses throughout their on-campus study time at LSBU. They learn manual handling of patients, basic life support skills and skills specific to the field of nursing.
The nursing wards have simulator mannequins; SimMan, SimBaby and SimMom. These life-size mannequins are computer controlled and can be programmed with various clinical conditions. These are operated by a computer in real-time and so respond to a students' actions. They also allow students to see the outcome of specific interventions in certain scenarios, which could make the patient better or deteriorate quite quickly.
The mannequins are used to teach students how to recognise clinical signs, and to also associate those clinical signs with the actions they are taking to care for the patient. SimMan can be male or female with fully accurate anatomy and can breathe, blink, sweat, speak and groan in pain as well as have a pulse. Read more about SimMan.
As a Health and Social Care student, you will be allocated a named tutor during your first three weeks at LSBU. The role of your tutor is to be your primary contact for academic and professional development support.
Your tutor will support you to get the most of your time at LSBU, providing advice and signposting to other sources of support in the University. They should be the first person at the university that you speak to if you are having any difficulties that are affecting your work. These could be academic, financial, health-related or another type of problem.
You will have appointments with your personal tutor at least 4 times a year and after every placement throughout your course. You can contact your tutor for additional support by email or phone.
Applicants will be considered on an individual basis but will normally require:
Mode | Duration | Start date | Application code | Application method |
---|---|---|---|---|
Mode Full-time |
Duration 2 years |
Start date September |
Application code B731 |
Application method |
This course is not open to international students.
Although the PgDip is a postgraduate course, all students apply to the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). Full details of how to do this are supplied on our How to apply webpage for undergraduate students.
When making your UCAS application you will need to apply for your chosen field of nursing practice.
Remember the personal statement is extremely important. This is essentially a selling tool on why you are right for the course. The personal statement is taken into consideration when shortlisting applicants for interview. Download our Personal Statement Guide (PDF File 160 KB).
All applicants are required to make an APL claim. You may apply for APL through both certificated learning and the production of a portfolio to demonstrate achievement of programme outcomes for the programme you have applied for through experience. You are permitted to claim up to 50% APL when applying to study with us using prior work and academic experience, for example: previous health or science based Degree studies, Foundation degree etc. You will be provided with guidance notes to assist you in constructing this.
If your application has been successfully shortlisted you will be invited, through UCAS Track, to attend an interview at a given time and date. You will be required to show Photographic Government ID (passport or driving licence) at the interview.
Read our interview page for important information about this stage and to help you prepare.
At your interview we start the process of checking your eligibility for NHS funding.
In order for us to ascertain your eligibility for NHS funding, download the Preliminary Fee Assessment Form (PDF File 155 KB), complete and bring it with you to the interview. Also, ensure you bring along your evidence as noted in the letter which will enable us to assess your residency status.
These will be made available through UCAS Track usually within two weeks.
Book your time with one of our specialist Postgraduate Advisors. Over a one on one Advice Session they'll advise you on postgraduate degrees at LSBU that match your interests and experience.
Home, EU and International students should apply for our full-time and part-time postgraduate research courses in the UK using the online system provided by the UK Postgraduate Application and Statistical Service (UKPASS) via UCAS Postgraduate. You can apply for up to 10 courses – create your application in your own time and complete unfinished sections when you're ready. Use their Track service to follow your applications as they progress through the system and receive any offer replies online. All application enquiries can be put to our Course Enquiries Team by phoning 0800 923 88 88, or emailing course.enquiry@lsbu.ac.uk.
Your application will be circulated to a number of potential supervisors who will look at your academic qualifications, experience and the research proposal to decide whether your research interest is something that could be supervised at LSBU.
There will also be an interview either by telephone or at the University. If you are successful you will be offered a place on a course and informed of the next enrolment date. The whole process normally takes between six to eight weeks, from receipt of your application to a decision being made about your application at the School.
All pre-registration students need to be DBS cleared before going on placement. You’ll need to have an enhanced DBS check even if you have had one before and will not be able to go on placement until this is complete.
The DBS process is not difficult but can take some time so it's best to get started as soon as you receive your email. You will receive the email during Summer 2021.
If you're part of the DBS update service, your subscription is up to date and you already have a DBS certificate, please bring in your original green DBS certificate for the document check. To take advantage of the update service, your certificate needs to be classified as 'Enhanced' and workforce must be listed as 'Adult and Child'. If you have any queries, please email us at hscdbsoh@lsbu.ac.uk.
Our DBS supplier, Verifile, will send you an email with all the details you need to complete your DBS.
Verifile will give you instructions to log into their system and complete your personal details and information. To complete the process, you'll need your passport or driving licence and 5-year address history including dates when you moved in/out.
You can use your application number to track the progress of your DBS.
When you've finished, your Disclosure Statement will be mailed to the most recent address in your submission, so please make sure it's correct. We don't automatically receive a copy of this Statement, which is why we need you to bring it in as part of the next step.
Once you have completed the online part of the DBS process, you will need to produce three accepted documents from this list to be verified.
Before you start your course we’ll send you information on what you’ll need to do before you arrive and during your first few days on campus. You can read about the process on our new students pages.
An exciting part of many of our Health and Social Care courses is the opportunity to learn off-campus and work with patients, clients and/or service users. Before you start, we need to make sure that you have the correct levels of immunisations.
The second part of your occupational health check is to get any inoculations that you may need from your GP. When attending your GP appointment, please take printed copies of these two documents with you.
Vaccination Screening Advisory Letter
GP Vaccination and Screening History
After these steps are complete you will receive an email from OHWorks Ltd inviting you to attend an appointment on-campus with an Occupational Health Nurse. These appointments take place during the week and sometimes when your classes have already started.
The OH team have prepared this guide which outlines what to expect at each stage. If you have queries or concerns about your Occupational Health clearance or inoculations please contact the Occupational Health team.
Your holiday periods will not follow the normal University timetable because of placements. You’ll receive more details once you start your course.
Most health and social care courses’ practice placements will operate outside normal working hours e.g. evenings, nights, weekends and bank holidays.
Most placements and some practical sessions in our skills laboratories will require you to wear a uniform and name badge. You will be measured for uniforms specific to your course as part of your Welcome Week activities after enrolment. In the meantime, we have prepared answers to frequently asked questions that you might find useful.
We help our students prepare for university even before the semester starts. To find out when you should apply for your LSBU accommodation or student finance read the How to apply tab for this course.
Before you start your course we’ll send you information on what you’ll need to do before you arrive and during your first few days on campus. You can read about the process on our Enrolment pages.
Fees are shown for new entrants to courses, for each individual year of a course, together with the total fee for all the years of a course. Continuing LSBU students should refer to the Finance section of our student portal, MyLSBU. Queries regarding fees should be directed to the Fees and Bursaries Team on: +44 (0)20 7815 6181.
UK fee: £9250 | International fee: £0 |
AOS/LSBU code: 5445 | Session code: 1FS00 |
Total course fee: |
UK £18500 |
International £0 |
The international fee for this course shows as "£0" because this course is not open to international students.
Since August 2018 new postgraduate pre-registration nursing, midwifery and allied health professional students have been able to access loans from the Student Loans Company. Accessing loans provides at least 25% more up-front living cost support whilst you study. You will also have access to the Learning Support Fund, which is administered by the NHS Business Services Authority, for support while attending clinical placements.
Background to these changes can be found on Gov.uk.
Council of Deans have prepared a briefing paper and Student Finance have outlined who qualifies. The Funding Clinic provides further information on what support is available.
NHS Bursary will produce guidelines and information once the information has received parliamentary approval.
The individual fee for this course is shown above. For more information, including how and when to pay, see our fees and funding section for postgraduate students.
See our Tuition Fees Regulations (PDF File 391 KB) and Refund Policy (PDF File 775 KB).
We have a range of PhD Scholarships available in partnership with businesses and organisations; read notices of PhD studentships.
Course Enquiries - UK
Tel: 0207 815 7500
Order a prospectus