Posts Tagged ‘education’

Local mental health Trust, Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV) has worked with CU Scarborough – part of the Coventry University Group, York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and NHS Scarborough and Ryedale CCG to introduce a Registered Mental Health Nursing course and Nursing Associate course.

The first students on the Nursing Associate course will start in January 2020, while the Mental Health Nursing course began in September.

It is hoped that the new courses will bring a welcome boost to the number of people choosing to work in local NHS mental health services.

The three-year BSc degree programmes will allow students to practice nursing in a range of in-patient and community settings, leading them to achieve registered nursing status with the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

There are 15 spaces available on the Nursing Associate course, and TEWV will be offering students on both courses a range of placements in its services, as well as offering apprenticeships on both programmes to a number of its existing staff.

The apprenticeships will allow Trust staff to obtain valuable skills, whilst remaining in employment throughout their studies, which in turn supports the Trust to retain valued staff.

Elizabeth Moody, Director of Nursing and Governance for TEWV, said: “The work was led by the Trust’s Professional Nursing and Education team, who already successfully work in partnership with a number of other Universities across the wider Trust area.

“We hope that the new partnership with CU Scarborough will bring a welcome boost to mental health nursing across the local area, with students choosing to continue their careers in the Trust once they have completed their studies.”

Emily Harrison, Course Lead for Nursing at CU Scarborough, said: “We were so pleased to welcome our first students onto our Mental Health Nursing course in September, and we’re also looking forward to the first students starting our Nursing Associate course in January.

“Mental health is such an important aspect of people’s wellbeing, and we need to make sure we have enough qualified nurses to take care of people who may be struggling. These courses will give students the skills they need to be able to do that.

“We are proud to be playing our part in training the next generation of mental health nurses to help patients in Scarborough and the wider area.”

Dr Peter Billingsley, Mental Health Lead for the three Clinical Commissioning Groups in North Yorkshire, said: “It is terrific that we now have general and mental health nurse training places available in Scarborough – it will go a long way towards addressing some of the recruitment challenges we face and is great news for the local economy.

“It’s important we support efforts to develop a local workforce with roots already in our community who will want to serve this area when they have completed their training.

“We are confident that many of the students who undertake this training will want to continue living and working in Scarborough and Ryedale, which is great news and will mean employers are not having to look further afield to fill vacancies.”

A programme for Learning Disability Nursing has also been approved and it is hoped that this will commence in the next academic year.