MSc (Hons) Community Health Studies (Specialist Practitioner - Community Children’s Nursing)

This multi-professional MSc Community Children’s Nursing course is designed for registered children’s nurses wishing to consolidate or prepare for a leadership role within a community context.

Being able to critically analyse and evaluate both policy and practice is a central focus of this course. It aims to develop professionals who can independently access information and use it to critically assess, evaluate and disseminate the evidence base for community nursing care.

It will advance your knowledge of the management of children with complex needs, life-limiting conditions and specialist care requirements, and provide you with the skills to support families for whom the focus is providing care closer to home.

You will develop specialist knowledge in decision making, law, ethics and multi-disciplinary teamwork, as well as the confidence to lead, develop and bring about change in community and primary care.

You will gain a recordable specialist practice qualification in Community Children’s Nursing as well as the Masters qualification, and have your professional competencies, as set out by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), assessed in theory and practice through 40 days of practical clinical placements. This Community Children's Nursing course is currently funded by the Workforce, Education and Development Services department of Welsh Government.

NMC Approved logo

T&C's Apply - Learn more

‹ ›

2023
2024

Study Mode 2023	Duration	Start Date	Campus	Campus Code
Part-time	3 Years	September	Glyntaff	A

Study Mode 2024	Duration	Start Date	Campus	Campus Code
Part-time	3 Years	September	Glyntaff	A

Year One

During the first year of study, you will undertake three core modules:

Fundamentals of Community Practice - 30 credits
This module prepares you to work safely, effectively and efficiently in a community setting, with patients, clients, families, colleagues and members of multi-disciplinary and multi-agency teams.
Decision Making - 10 credits
This module enables you to critically explore decision making processes as they relate to practice.
Specialist Practitioner (Community Children’s Nursing 20 credits)
This module prepares you to develop specialist knowledge and specialist clinical expertise, within the complex and changing context of caring for, and working with, children, young people, and their families in community settings.

Year Two

During the second year of study, you will undertake one core module and two optional modules. Optional modules will be decided at the end of year one. Students must study 60 credits per year.

Core module

Research methods for practice - 20 credits
This module will provide you with a comprehensive grounding in research paradigms and methods. And will enable you to demonstrate critical appraisal and synthesis regarding the relationship between the research context, research question, method and knowledge development.

Optional modules

Law, Ethics and Nurse Prescribing (20 credits)
This module you to utilise and make judgements about the legal and ethical frameworks relating to patient and clients in society, to analyse your accountability, and to prepare you to prescribe safely, appropriately and cost effectively from the community practitioner formulary for nurse prescribers.
Paediatric Symptom Management Within Palliative Care (20 credits)
This module enables you to explore issues in depth arising from contemporary paediatric palliative care especially in relation to symptom management.
Living Well With Long Term Health Conditions (20 credits)
This module aims to enhance knowledge and understanding of long term health conditions and its management to enable service users to live with the conditions and improve their health and wellbeing.

Teaching

The NMC require forty academic days to be completed. Twenty-six of these require attendance on campus on a Tuesday, from September to May. The other fourteen academic days will be self-directed and recorded on a course diary.

Each academic day is counted as 7.5 hours, thus achieving 300 hours of student effort. You will be taught alongside other community nurses by members of the team who possess a SPQ recordable with the NMC, and some practitioners.

Teaching and learning methods include lectures, tutorials, workshops and self-directed study.

If you have undertaken the 30-credit Fundamentals of Community Practice module within the last five years, this can be transferred to the MSc.

Students can opt to finish after two years and exit with a postgraduate diploma and SPQ. Please note, the third year is not funded by WEDS.

Assessment

You will be assessed by a range of methods including writing essays and case studies, formal presentations, poster presentations, examinations, dissertation, literature reviews and clinical practice assessments.

Year One

Fundamentals of Community Practice
The practical assessment will require developing and completing a portfolio demonstrating achievement of the four clinical learning outcomes. The academic assessment will take the form of a 5000 word case study examining in-depth, the theoretical outcomes associated with the four themes.

Decision making
Complete three academic ‘enabling activities’. These activities will consider decisions made by yourself relating to your own workplace. Each activity has equal weighting and will be marked out of 100. The completion of a clinical portfolio of evidence which supports and demonstrates the decisions made (within the Summative assignment).

Specialist Practitioner (Community Children’s Nursing)
Academically you will present a 20 minute oral presentation of a short quality improvement exercise within your practice area. Practice Assessor verification of achievement of the five clinical learning outcomes

Year Two

Research methods for practice
A 6,000 word research proposal. There are no clinical learning outcomes associated with this module.

Law, Ethics and Nurse Prescribing
Poster presentation exploring one of the themes of this module applied to Community Health Nursing. A written examination consisting of four parts. And to achieve a clinical learning outcome, which aims to recognise ethical and legal issues which have implications for nursing practice and take appropriate action

Paediatric Symptom Management Within Palliative Care
A 3,000 word critical review of a chosen aspect of paediatric palliative care, and achievement of a clinical learning outcome.

Living Well with Long Term Health Conditions
A case study that identifies an individual with at least one long term health condition, which critically examines how the professional works with the service user and other professional to enable them to improve their health and wellbeing. One clinical learning outcome to achieve.

After two years you will attain a recordable specialist practice qualification with the NMC and an option to exit the course with a PgDiploma.

Year Three

Dissertation
After three years you will attain the MSc qualification.

Accreditations

Accredited by the Nursing and Midwifery Council. The University of South Wales is an NMC Approved Education Institution (AEI).

Placements

On this Community Children’s Nursing course, you will undertake forty clinical practice days between September and May within a community setting that meets the needs of children and young people. Ideally you should be working in a community setting, however, if not you will need to negotiate a placement with a team in Wales. While in clinical practice, you will be assigned a Practice Assessor who will assess your clinical competence.

Students can arrange placements with appropriate teams and practitioners to aid their understanding of the clinical learning outcomes. Assistance in sourcing suitable placements is available should you need it. The Community Children’s Nursing course does not hold any exchange partnerships, although the students can arrange placements outside of Wales if they are deemed to be helpful in meeting the clinical learning outcomes.

Lecturers

Michelle Panniers - Community Children's Nurse lead
Angela Hiscocks - Programme and District Nurse lead
Eileen Munson - General Practice Nurse lead
Donna Pace - Nurse Lecturer Adult Community – District Nursing

We regularly revalidate courses for quality assurance and enhancement

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.

Applicants must have a first level registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and be on part 8 or 15 of the NMC register.

You must have acquired a credit rating of 120 credits* at Level 6 (Degree) or studied previously at Level 7, e.g. postgraduate diploma.

An Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check on the Child & Adult Workforce and Child and Adult Barring Lists and subscription to the DBS Update Service. (Overseas equivalent required for non-uk applicants)

*If you have not achieved 120 Level 6 credits, there is a process of Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) you can undertake.

Fees: This course is fully funded by the Welsh Government for two years only. The third year is self-funded and not paid for by Welsh Government.

Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits. Once enrolled, the fee will remain at the same rate throughout the duration of your study on this course.

August 2023 - July 2024 Fees

These courses are normally supported by Welsh Government commissioners in collaboration with NHS University health Boards

August 2024 - July 2025 Fees

These courses are normally supported by Welsh Government commissioners in collaboration with NHS University health Boards

Student Perks

At the University of South Wales, you’re investing in so much more than a degree. We strive to provide our students with the best possible experience, no matter what you chose to study. Whether it’s access to top of the range mac books and PCs, state-of-the-art facilities packed with industry-leading equipment and software, masterclasses and events led by industry experts, or a wide range of clubs and societies to meet likeminded people, better tomorrows start with extra perks.

Each course also has their own unique student benefits to prepare you for the real word, and details of these can be found on our course pages. From global field trips, integrated work experience and free course-related resources, to funded initiatives, projects working with real employers, and opportunities for extra qualifications and accreditations - at USW your future, is future-proofed.

Click here to learn more about student perks at USW.

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

Item	Cost
DBS *	£55.42	This fee includes £40 for the enhanced DBS certificate, the Post Office Administration fee and the online administration fee.
DBS Updating Service *	£13	Subscription required for each year of the course for a yearly fee of £13. Please note the service has to be joined within 30 days of receipt of your enhanced DBS certificate.

Funding

Funding to help pay for (or cover) course tuition fees and living costs

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).

To learn about course fees, funding options, and to see if you are eligible for financial support, visit our Fees and Funding pages.

USW Postgraduate 20% Alumni Discount 2023/24

The University of South Wales is offering a 20% reduction in tuition fees for all University of South Wales* graduates starting a taught/online*** MA,MSc, LLM,MBA or DBA course from September 2023 (this includes students starting a course in January/February 2024). T's and Cs apply. Click here for more details and eligibility criteria: USW Postgraduate Alumni Discount 2023/24

Apply directly to the University for this Community Children’s Nursing course.

Admissions statement

Undertaking this Community Children’s Nursing course ensures you will graduate with the knowledge, skills, competencies and capacity to provide safe and effective nursing care in community settings. Additionally, having employees with a specialist practitioner qualification is valued by nursing managers, commissioners and the Welsh Government.