BSc(Hons) Nursing (Learning Disabilities)

Professional accreditation

This course is accredited by The Nursing and Midwifery Council.

Placements

UWE Bristol's geographical area for placement provision covers the whole of the South, South West and West of England. Placements across this region help support and provide a wealth of clinical experience across many areas within the NHS healthcare service and the Private Voluntary and Independent sector. These placements are vital to meet the professional regulatory body standards in practice for our affiliated health and social care courses. 

To access this variety of opportunities within the health and social care courses, there's  an expectation that all students at times will have to travel across large areas. In some cases this can be more than 50 miles away  and may be outside of normal working hours due to the nature of shift work on some courses. 

When considering your application to these courses, you must ensure you have means to travel to your placement location at unsociable hours, and/or funds available to secure short-term accommodation options to participate in your placement, if required.  

With two practice placements a year, you'll spend half the course applying your knowledge and building your professional skills working with people, their families and healthcare professionals in a range of settings.

We have excellent links with our local employers, and placements are normally split between NHS roles and positions in private or voluntary sector organisations.

You'll get a broad range of practice experiences, putting you in a strong position for future employment in either a community or hospital setting. In each placement setting you'll receive support and guidance from supervisors and assessors.

During the course, you'll experience placements across a range of practice areas including hospital, community, and social care settings. Within these placement experiences, you'll be supervised and assessed to achieve the proficiencies within the course and complete the 2300 hours of practice learning as required by the Nursing and Midwifery Council. As part of this, you'll also experience simulated learning experiences which will enhance your practice learning, provide exposure to hard-to-reach areas of practice, and focus on developing advanced skills.

Study facilities

All nursing students at UWE Bristol are based at Glenside, our dedicated healthcare campus. It's a welcoming community that combines beautiful surroundings with first-rate facilities and equipment.

Our Skills Simulation Centre is a replica hospital ward where you'll be able to refine your clinical skills and build your confidence before going out into practice.

There are consultation rooms, adapted living spaces, a maternity unit, and a children's unit, as well as a range of manikins on which you can develop your clinical expertise.

What's more, all the apparatus you'll use is genuine equipment found in NHS hospitals. So when you head out on placement, you won't be stepping into the unknown.

Take a personalised virtual tour of the Nursing and Midwifery facilities and experience what a typical day could look like here for you.

Careers / Further study

Learning Disability nurses are in demand across the UK. All our graduates gain employment and enter careers in a variety of roles for the NHS, private and voluntary sector employers, in community and hospital settings.

Due to the needs of our service users, graduates often branch out into other specialisms, such as acquired brain injury, dementia and mental health care, adult or children's services, and specialist teams. With so many new doors opening, this is an exciting time for the learning disability nurse.

Once qualified you can also combine clinical work with study on a post-qualifying course. By specialising further in a specific area, you can progress to more senior positions such as consultant nurse, nurse specialist, researcher, or local or regional services manager.

Find out more about careers in learning disability nursing.

Take the NHS Nursing careers quiz.

Get inspired

Our award-winning careers service will develop your employment potential through career coaching and find you graduate jobs, placements and global opportunities.

We can also help find local volunteering and community opportunities, provide support for entrepreneurial activity and get you access to employer events.

Visit our employability pages to learn more about careers, employers and what our students are doing six months after graduating.

Supplementary fee information

Additional costs are for items you could need during your studies that aren't covered by the standard tuition fee. These could be materials, textbooks, travel, clothing, software or printing.

Learn more about costs.

A £5,000 per year training grant is available for home students along with an additional £1,000 per year grant because learning disabilities nurses are in demand in the UK and worldwide. Further information is available on the NHS Business Services website.

If you undertake the international opportunity available on this course, you'll need to self-finance but Home students can apply for a means-tested bursary fund for support during that time.