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BSc (Hons)

Nursing (Learning Disabilities)

Qualify as a nurse and specialise in working alongside children and adults with learning disabilities on a course shaped by those with lived experience.

How to apply Apply Through UCAS Book an Open Day Chat to Us

Key Course Details

  • UCAS Code

    B703

  • Start Date

    September

  • Location

    Pontypridd

  • Campus Code

    A

Fees

  • Home students

    £9,535*

  • International students

    £16,200*

  • Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits.

Study full or part-time to become a qualified nurse specialising in supporting children and adults with learning disabilities on this accredited course. Our Teaching and Research team is made up of adults with learning disabilities who advise on what’s important to them.

DESIGNED FOR

This degree is for people committed to supporting people with learning disabilities, whether you’re a school leaver or have more life experience. Students are often (but not only) carers, supporters, or family members of people with learning disabilities, looking for a fulfilling career.

Accredited By

  • Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC)

Career paths

  • Nurse consultant  
  • Researcher  
  • Community nursing  
  • Lead nursing  
  • Forensic nursing  
  • School nursing  
  • Lecturer  
  • Further study  

Skills taught 

  • Safe and effective person-centred care  
  • Positive behaviour support skills  
  • Communication and rapport-building  
  • Working in partnership with individuals and carers  

We make a difference in practice, not just on paper. Our courses are designed by people who offer jobs - and taught by people who have real work experience.

Patient and nurse sat together chatting in a home setting
A patient in a wheelchair looking at a tablet screen with the help of a carer
A student nurse smiles while chatting and showing papers to a patient with learning disabilities
Two student nurses looking at medical notes in the clinical simulation centre

Course Highlights

Nursing & Midwifery Council accredited course 

Don’t just earn a degree; gain a powerful edge in market and make an impact from day one.

Co-created curriculum

We work with people with lived experience who inform what you’ll learn and teach guest sessions.

Interactive learning 

Use industry-standard equipment, work on patient simulators, and practice in our Clinical Simulation Centre.

Personal support 

A practice supervisor will support you on placements, and you’ll have access to academic and personal tutors too.

Module Overview

You’ll start by learning the theory, then putting it into practice with alternating blocks of classes and placements, lasting at least 52 weeks. You’ll graduate with the skills and confidence to start your career as a specialist supporting people with learning disabilities. 

Theory modules are the same for all nursing students, regardless of the specialism you’ve chosen, and your placements will enable you to apply what you’ve learned in a range of settings. You’ll discuss how theory applies in your specialist area in dedicated adult learning disability workshops.

The Essentials of Nursing Practice  
Your introduction to nursing essentials, including professional approaches, physiology, social science and the interaction between mental and physical health.   

Promoting Health and Wellbeing*  

Learn to identify, define and measure health needs across a lifespan. Understand relevant legislation and how vulnerability and safeguarding issues need handling.

*This module can be studied 100% through the medium of Welsh

Assessing Needs and Creating Therapeutic Opportunities   
Understand the processes and techniques of person-centred assessment, develop your clinical skills and be introduced to key principles.     

Developing Confidence in Practice: Practice 1   
Prepare for placements by exploring necessary documentation, reflective practice, safe administration of medicines and nursing procedural skills. 

Build on your skills and knowledge with more theory and specialist-supervised placements as you develop your nursing abilities. What you learn in lectures will be discussed in core lectures and field-specific tutorials to add context to the theory.

Enhancing Assessment & Evidence-Based Interventions   
Build your abilities in assessment, diagnosis and therapeutic interventions. Learn about collaborating across specialisms and person-centred care.  

Professional, Legal & Ethical Issues in Nursing   
Explore professional, legal and ethical concepts and principles and the right to health care. Become politically aware and build influencing skills.

Informed Decision Making in the Practice Environment   
Develop assertiveness and professional courage. Understand ethical approaches and decision-making principles like mental capacity.    

Evidence Based Practice: Evaluating Care within the Context of Practice  
Deepen understanding of evidence, quality and continuous improvement. Explore research methodologies and evaluation approaches.  

Your final year will help you develop into a confident nurse ready to work independently with children or adults with learning disabilities. The same blend of theory, practice and personal support will have you qualify feeling ready for your new career. 

Advancing Knowledge, Skills & Therapeutic Interventions   
Advance your skills in caring for people with complex conditions, pathophysiology,- preparing for prescribing and communication strategies.  

Leading and Managing Quality Care Across Settings   
Develop leadership skills. Consider policy change impacts on care delivery. Study resource management, shared decision-making and accountability.  

The Nurse as an Educator   
Expand your influencing and feedback skills. Practice presentation skills and develop accessible approaches to teaching and learning.  

Becoming a Proficient Practitioner   
Become ready for registration by understanding the principles of lifelong learning. Consolidate communication, supervising and nursing skills.

Course Highlights

How you’ll learn

With alternating blocks of theory and practical placements caring for adults with learning disabilities, you will graduate ready to become a registered nurse. You’ll have the option to undertake a BTEC Positive Behaviour Support qual alongside your degree. Dedicated tutorials with fellow learning disabilities students will help you apply what you’ve learned in lectures to your specialism. Your learning will also be supported by guest lectures and simulations involving people with learning disabilities.  

Teaching staff

Our teaching staff are all learning disabilities nurses, and active researchers. We secure specialist input from a range of other professionals as well as adults with learning disabilities to help you understand people’s lived experiences.   

We are highly specialist in the area of learning disabilities. USW is home to the Unit for Development in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities  (UDIDD), at the forefront of research into enhancing the quality of life and service provision for people with learning disabilities, their families and carers. 

Placements and work experience

Practical experience is critical to building your nursing skills so you will do three placements in each year of your degree. You’ll be carefully supported with a practice assessor and practice supervisor during your placements, to help you make the most of your time and answer any queries.  

We work closely with local health boards – Swansea Bay, Powys and Aneurin Bevan – to provide a range of clinical placements to make sure you feel confident working with children and adults with learning disabilities and as part of multi-disciplinary teams.   

Facilities

Our Clinical Simulation Suite is the perfect practice environment, with a replica flat, ambulance, GP consultation room and intensive therapy unit (ITU). It includes a range of bays to simulate a hospital setting, including dedicated paediatric and intensive care environments.    

The centre is used for healthcare education and nurse training, dealing with everything from essential clinical skills to complex, multidisciplinary clinical scenarios. You’ll use the same equipment you will find in healthcare settings, and work on patient simulators that mimic the body’s reactions to illness, care and treatment.  

A student studying learning disability nursing reads a menu to a patient in a cafe

  • Top 20 in the UK for General Nursing (Guardian League Table 2023)

  • 94% of students are in work or further study fifteen months after graduating from USW.

90%

of our BSc (Hons) Nursing (Learning Disabilities) students were satisfied with their course.

National Student Survey 2024

  • Top 20 in the UK for General Nursing (Guardian League Table 2023)

  • 94% of students are in work or further study fifteen months after graduating from USW.

Careers and Employability

Graduate careers

Nurses are in high demand and all of our students get jobs, usually before they even graduate. Many have the luxury of choosing which job offer to accept.   

Employers are keen to recruit our nursing graduates because they know they are well-prepared, confident, competent and safe practitioners.   

Learning disability nurses can work in local health boards, private providers as well as educational, charitable and voluntary providers. Graduates could also work abroad in places like New Zealand or the Republic of Ireland.   

You could also progress to a research degree with the Unit for Development in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (UDIDD). 

Careers support

Your placements will help you refine what kind of setting you would like to work in and many of them lead to future job offers for our students before the end of their course. You may be offered a role at a setting where you’ve done a placement before or will be able to easily secure one when applying on the open market.     

You’ll have access to advice from the Careers and Employability Service throughout your studies and after you graduate to help you refine your CV and support with job applications.   

Industry partners

Our strong relationships with local health boards help us secure placements for all our nursing students. We can offer placements in a wide range of settings, covering paediatric and adult nursing, as well as in primary and acute care.     

We work closely with local health boards – Swansea Bay, Powys and Aneurin Bevan – and our students are highly regarded by them.  

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

Typical qualification requirements:

  • A Level: BBB to exclude General Studies
  • Welsh BACC: Grade B and BB at A Level to exclude General Studies
  • BTEC: BTEC Extended Diploma Distinction Distinction Merit
  • Access to HE: Must complete 60 credits overall with at least 45 at level 3 and 15 at Level 2. Of the 45 credits at level 3, you will need a minimum of 24 Distinctions, 18 Merits and 3 passes.

Application advice:

We strongly advise applicants to take advantage of the advice available online, from demonstrating you have the relevant qualifications or experience, tips on writing your personal statement to advice on preparing for interview, we have a wealth of support and guidance available to applicants to ensure you are able to demonstrate that you have what it takes and make your application the best it can be. Please read our application advice.

Additional requirements include:

  • All applicants are required to attend an interview. For further support on preparing for interview and what to expect at interview, please read our application advice.
  • One satisfactory reference from someone who is able to comment on your attitude and approach to learning in a professional or academic sense.
  • An Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check on the Child & Adult Workforce and Child & Adult Barring List and subscription to the DBS Update Service is required. (Overseas equivalent required for non-uk applicants).
  • A satisfactory medical will be required once an offer has been made. We will contact you closer to your start date with details of how to obtain these.
  • The University normally requires a minimum 5 GCSEs including Mathematics/Numeracy and English at Grade C or Grade 4 or above, or their equivalent, but consideration is given to individual circumstances.
  • Equivalent qualifications considered are Essential Skills Level Two in Communication and Application of Number, or Functional Skills Level Two in English and Mathematics. (Must have been achieved since 2016).

Closed for International applicants 

Unfortunately, this course is not currently open to international applicants, please visit our course pages where you can find an alternative course choice. 

 

Contextual offers

We may make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (where you live and the school or college that you attended, for example), your experiences and individual circumstances (as a care leaver, for example). This is referred to as a contextual offer, and we receive data from UCAS to support us in making these decisions.

USW prides itself on its student experience and we support our students to achieve their goals and become a successful graduate. This approach helps us to support students who have the potential to succeed and who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university.

 

We're here to help

Whether you a have a question about your course, fees and funding, the application process or anything else, there are plenty of ways you can get in touch, and we'd love to talk to you. You can contact our friendly admissions team by phone, email or chat to us online.

 

Fees and Funding

UK Full-time Fee

£9,535

per year*
UK Full-time Fee

£9,535

per year*
International Full-time Fee

£16,200

per year*
International Full-time Fee

£16,200

per year*

Further Information

Studying at university is one of the most significant investments you'll ever make. Whilst you’re studying, you’ll have two main financial obligations – tuition fees and living costs. There’s lots of financial help available from the University of South Wales and external funding sources, that may provide loans (which have to be paid back) and grants, scholarships and bursaries (that don't).

*Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits. Once enrolled, the fee is anticipated to remain at the same rate throughout the duration of your study on this course except as described below.

Please be aware that we may increase the maximum fee for home students on full-time undergraduate courses only where the Welsh Government increases the permitted level of inflation of fees. Fees for all students (including part-time, postgraduate and international students) may be amended in accordance with our applicable Fees and Debt Management Policy.  We will ensure that students are given clear, intelligible, unambiguous and timely information about our courses and costs in good time, ahead of the next academic year.

 

Fees and Funding Scholarships and Bursaries Cost of Living Support

Additional Costs

As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.

*Obligatory 

An enhanced DBS is required. The update service is recommended.

Cost: £64.74 annually for enhanced DBS and £16 for the update service.

University Quality Assurance

At USW, we regularly review our courses in response to changing patterns of employment and skills demand to ensure we offer learning designed to reflect today’s student needs and tomorrow’s employer demands.

If during a review process course content is significantly changed, we’ll write to inform you and talk you through the changes for the coming year. But whatever the outcome, we aim to equip our students with the skillset and the mindset to succeed whatever tomorrow may bring. Your future, future-proofed.

Life at USW

Halls are a big part of your student experience and there’s accommodation at all three of our locations. If you don’t want to live near the campus, there are great transport links to keep you connected.

A student sat smiling and talking to friends off camera in Treforest Student's Union
Student Life
Close up shot of the front of the Alfred Russell wallace building.
Pontypridd Campus, Glyntaff
A double room at our Pontypridd accommodation featuring a large window.
Accommodation

How to apply

All applications for full-time undergraduate courses or foundation degrees should be made via UCAS. Take the next step: Apply through UCAS. You can apply to us directly for all part-time undergraduate courses, if you’re seeking advanced entry or you’re an international student. To apply directly, please choose the application form below for your preferred start date and mode of study (full-time or part-time.)

Advanced entry

If you already have a relevant qualification or experience related to the course you're applying for, you may be eligible to start at a later stage of the course. For example, students from partner colleges can ‘top up’ their qualifications to a degree by joining us in Year Two or Year Three of a course. This process is known as ‘advanced entry’, you can apply directly to the University for 'advanced entry' using the application forms provided above.

International admissions

International applicants can apply to us directly. If the University has an in-country team in your region, your application will be assigned to them for assistance.
 

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Next Steps

How to apply
Apply Through UCAS
Book an Open Day
Chat to Us