Nursing (Mental Health) BSc(Hons)

NMC and vaccination requirements

For all nursing courses leading to registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) as a nurse, you must demonstrate the following:

• completion of 10 years general education
• successful completion of literacy and numeracy assessments during the interview process
• evidence of study within the last five years is desirable
• evidence of commitment to the profession
• passing of occupational health and Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks
• ability to meet travel requirements to attend placements
• ability to follow a shift pattern that could cover any part of a 24-hour seven-day cycle.

Occupational health screening and vaccinations
You will need to complete an occupational health screening and we strongly encourage that you get all of the required vaccinations. Particular vaccinations are a requirement of certain NHS placement providers and are in place to protect you and the patients. Without the appropriate vaccinations you will not be able to undertake some placements – and this may impact on your ability to complete your course. The list of required vaccinations is updated by the NHS and may change over the course of your studies.

Top reasons to choose this course

• Accredited by the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

• A guaranteed job with Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust at graduation.

• You’ll share some learning with other nursing fields and other disciplines, allowing you to benefit from intraprofessional collaboration.

• Benefit from practising nursing skills under supervision in an environment that simulates nurses’ real-life professional experiences.

• 100% of graduates are in work or further study 15 months after their degree and 100% of working graduates are in highly skilled work as nursing professionals – Graduate Outcomes Survey.

• Non-repayable grant of at least £6,000 each academic year.

• Brighton is in the UK top 25% for graduate earnings in nursing and midwifery, three years after graduating – Longitudinal Education Outcomes 2022.

• Support throughout your degree from our student-run Nursing Society.

Course structure

You’ll share at least one module with students from other nursing fields and some sessions with other disciplines, allowing you to benefit from intraprofessional collaboration. You will also benefit from service users contributing to your learning through shared stories and membership of the Mental Health Nursing Special Interest Group.

In each year of the degree, you will engage with both theory and practice learning. The degree alternates between academic terms and blocks of practice. In total during your degree you will complete 2,300 academic hours and 2,300 of practice learning.

Theory sessions in academic terms take place at the university. You will attend Monday to Friday with independent study days. Practice placement blocks are 37.5 hours per week and between five and 14 weeks long.

You will be supported to proactively engage with your learning through self-assessment, peer assessment, problem-based approaches, blended learning technologies, practice-based learning, group work and reflective practice groups. The promotion of lifelong learning is a core value of the course and social learning practices are actively encouraged.

As a student on this course you’ll also get to participate in Schwartz Rounds – hour-long sessions where students come together to listen to stories and share reflections in a supportive and confidential environment. The sessions offer the opportunity to reflect on the emotional aspects of clinical practice and are designed to support students and recent graduates working in complex settings.

Making sure that what you learn with us is relevant, up to date and what employers are looking for is our priority, so courses are reviewed and enhanced on an ongoing basis. When you have applied to us, you’ll be told about any new developments through Student View.

Areas of study

Our mental health nursing students learn to promote personal recovery and physical health using the head (knowledge, critical thought and enquiry), the heart (emotion and attunement) and the hand (the practice of nursing) through attention to therapeutic relationships with service users, families and carers.

The course acknowledges the socio-political and cultural context for people and works towards building social capital and social justice. Learning is constructed through commitment and attention to scientific endeavour using an evidence base, while valuing dialogue, reading, enquiry, curiosity and critical thinking.

Our course content is co-constructed with service users, our practice partners, other students, lecturers and the wider academic community.

It is important to nurture an environment where you feel safe to ask questions, safe to contribute and safe to challenge the status quo.

We promote inclusivity and respect diversity through considering mental health and illness across the lifespan and intersections of age, gender, gender assignment, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, race, disability, neurodiversity, religious beliefs, spirituality and relationship status.

Using both critical reflection and reflexivity, you’ll be encouraged to explore a range of theoretical positions such as biomedicine, recovery and trauma-informed approaches, anti-oppressive practices, de-colonisation, peer support, service user movement, psychological theories, an inequalities imagination, feminist, poststructuralist and critical social theories.

Recognising that patients are at the heart of everything the NHS does, we have embedded the core values of the NHS Constitution — respect, dignity, compassion and collaboration — into our curriculum.

Year 1

In year 1 you will explore the nature of nursing and the understanding of ‘self’, developing clinical and communication skills which are assessed in both the university and practice settings.

You may also take part in the Alzheimer’s Society’s award-winning Time for Dementia programme and follow a family’s dementia journey over an 18-month period.

Modules

• Nursing Assessment in Partnership with People

  This module will enable you to undertake a holistic nursing assessment of a person in terms of their mental, physical, social and spiritual needs. You’ll learn the importance of completing an assessment in partnership with the person, taking into account their circumstances, characteristics and preferences.

  You will also gain an understanding of the role of the nurse in assessing the person’s needs as a member of the multi-disciplinary team (MDT).

• Planning Nursing Care in Partnership with People

  This module will enable you to plan nursing care based on the information gained from a holistic nursing assessment. You’ll learn the importance of identifying priorities in the mental, physical, social and spiritual needs of the person and formulating a plan of care in partnership with the person and the multi-disciplinary team (MDT).

• Human Biology for Nursing

  This module will enable you to explore human biology in relation to the health, well-being and illness of a person across the lifespan. You’ll develop an understanding of how human biology and altered physiology underpins your developing nursing practice.

• Practice Learning for Nursing Year 1

  This practice assessment of the course is divided into three parts. This module comprises part one, which will enable you to begin developing the knowledge, skills and values required for nursing practice.

  You will integrate learning from your placement and at university in order to meet the Future Nurse: Standards of proficiency for registered nurses (Nursing and Midwifery Council [NMC] 2018).

Year 2

You will continue to build your professional practice skills and knowledge of ‘self’ in relation to others across different mental health settings.

Year 2 explores different theories and concepts that underpin mental health nursing practice that include biological, humanistic approaches, social and psychological theories and their impact on the service user and carer experience. The contribution of theories and concepts to Future Nurse (NMC 2018) standards and current mental health nursing practice is also explored.

Study will also look at long-term conditions, mental health and health promotion, with a practice module offering opportunities for service user-led sessions, mental health care planning and safety planning simulations.

Modules

• Quality Improvement Using Evidence-based Nursing Practice

  In this module you will explore the range of evidence used in evidence-based nursing practice and learn how to appraise this to improve quality of nursing care. You will look at principles of quality improvement such as patient safety, clinical governance, safeguarding, risk assessment and management, audit and evaluation.

• Approaches to Nursing Adults with Long-term Health Conditions

  You will develop the necessary knowledge, skills and values to care for adults with long-term health conditions during this module. Adult and mental health nurses will increasingly encounter service users who require support and management of such conditions, so this module will teach you to recognise the complexity of living with long-term health conditions and appraise the range of approaches to nursing adults with such conditions.

• Nursing to Promote Health and Prevent Illness

  This module explores the role nurses have in promoting health and preventing illness by looking at the theory and concepts of public health and health protection. Content includes public health and education, for example health literacy, health impact needs assessment and lifestyles changes; current public health strategies; social and environmental determinants of health including health inequalities at local and global levels; and collaborative working with health and social care professionals.

• Key Theories and Concepts Underpinning Mental Health Nursing

  This module introduces you to biological, social and psychological theories and concepts that underpin mental health nursing and will support you to consider one theory or concept in depth. You will look at core clinical subjects to explore theoretical influences, for example self-harm in relation to attachment theory, domestic violence in relation to gender studies, trauma in relation to adverse childhood experiences and suicide in relation to law.

• Practice Learning for Mental Health Nursing Year 2

  This practice assessment module will develop the knowledge, skills and values required for mental health nursing practice and integrate placement and university learning to meet the Future nurse: Standards of proficiency for registered nurses (Nursing & Midwifery Council [NMC] 2018). The central focus is the exploration of ‘lived experience narratives’ from the ‘experts by experience’ (service users) lecturing group.

Final year

In the final year you will continue to specialise in the field of mental health nursing and will focus on the ‘self’ in relation to supporting more complex service user needs, as well as gaining an understanding of clinical supervision, working in groups and organisational cultures.

You will explore and apply a range of therapeutic approaches and undertake experiential learning in mindfulness, compassionate mind training, motivational interviewing, immersive dementia simulations, working with distressed behaviours, advanced care planning and safety planning. You will also build on management and leadership skills as you prepare to enter professional practice.

Modules

• Contemporary and Future Nursing Practice

  In Contemporary and Future Nursing Practice you will analyse the context of, and contemporary influences on, nursing practice. These factors include health economics, health and social care policy, technology and research. You will learn how to improve the service for users and their family/carers and support sustainability in healthcare. You will also explore the importance of exercising political awareness as global citizens and your role in shaping the future of the nursing profession.

• Therapeutic Approaches in Mental Health Nursing

  This module will help develop your understanding of current evidence-based therapeutic approaches in mental health nursing, specifically when working with people who have differing presentations of mental distress. There will be a focus on the therapeutic relationship, the importance of recovery-orientated practice and the value of working in partnership with service users, carers and families.

• Enhanced Practice in Mental Health Nursing

  You will critically reflect on your own practice in the context of contemporary mental health care in this module to effectively meet the complex needs of service users in mental health settings. You will explore the process of therapeutic engagement with a service user/carer or within the multi-disciplinary team to inform your practice and contribute to your personal and professional development.

• Leading and Managing Nursing Care and Effective Teams

  In this module you will enhance your self-awareness and gain an appreciation of organisational leadership and management in healthcare. You’ll develop your own leadership values for your professional practice in relation to contemporary leadership theory. You will explore team working and its influence on a person-centred culture as well as collaborative interprofessional/multiagency working.

• Practice Learning for Mental Health Nursing Year 3

  You will continue to develop the knowledge, skills and values required for mental health nursing during this module. You’ll combine learning from both placement and university environments in order to meet the Future nurse: Standards of proficiency for registered nurses (Nursing & Midwifery Council [NMC] 2018).

Facilities

Placements and practice learning

Our flexible approach to practice-based learning and excellent links with local healthcare Trusts enable us to offer clinical practice in hospital and community settings, working alongside multi-professional teams.

Placements are located across Surrey, Sussex and Kent. A new hospital is being built in Bexhill-on-Sea and this will replace some current placement sites in Eastbourne and Hastings – a large number of placements will be located at the new hospital.

You will complete 2,300 hours of practice learning over the course of your degree. Approximately 20 weeks each year is spent in practice placements.  

Practice placements are 37.5 hours per week, and you will be supported by a practice supervisor and practice assessor. Placements are likely to include school holidays, some weekends and some nights, and can take place be between 07:00 and 22:00.

Clinical placements include community teams who work with mental health recovery, in-patient mental health services, older adults both in the community and on inpatient wards and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).

You may also gain some placement experiences in other services such as substance misuse, forensic services, police liaison and diversion, A+E liaison and prison healthcare. There is also the possibility of a quality improvement/research placement and a two- to four-week international placement.

It is currently possible to claim back excess travel costs; this is reviewed each year by the NHS.

Supporting you

You will receive lots of support throughout your mental health nursing degree. During your degree you’ll have access to: 

• academic assessor
• personal tutor
• practice liaison lecturers
• practice supervisors and practice assessors in clinical practice
• academic assessors 
• peer learning
• student support and guidance tutor (SSGT)
• wellbeing support.

Nursing Society
Our student-run Nursing Society provides support for all nursing students at every stage of your degree.

The society facilitates group learning and extracurricular lectures from speakers across the multidisciplinary team.

Study abroad

Meet the team

John Krohne, joint course leader

John has clinical experience in a variety of mental health settings including psychiatric intensive care (PICU) and older adult in-patient services in London and Brighton.

Between 2003 and 2014 he worked supporting nurse mentors and students in clinical practice across adult, child and mental health fields. From 2014 he was the education lead for a Community NHS Trust providing adult/child services. John joined the University of Brighton in 2016 as a senior lecturer.

His main areas of focus in the university are dementia, ethics, psychosocial studies and leadership. He is also the Time for Dementia Lead in year 1 and 2 of the nursing course in partnership with the Alzheimer’s Society, enabling students to gain perspectives of both the person living with ​dementia and their carer​ on the impact the dementia is having on their personal and social wellbeing.

In 2022 he took on the role of admission tutor for mental health student nurse recruitment and has been joint course leader for mental health nursing since February 2024.

Jamie Komeh, joint course leader

Jamie is a senior lecturer in mental health nursing at the University of Brighton and he is a Registered Mental Health Nurse. He trained in Keele University, Stoke-on-Trent, and has nearly 18 years experience working in various roles in the National Health Service (NHS) before becoming a lecturer.

Jamie has experience working in crisis mental health, adult and older people in-patients and mental health liaison and home treatment teams. He has an interest in people development and as a clinician was at the forefront of teaching learners in the clinical area and in the local universities as well as working in partnership with others to identify the most effective and meaningful forms of support.

He promotes innovative and creative ways to enhance learning. Jamie has been joint course leader for mental health nursing since February 2024.

Course fees

Additional funding support

UK students studying nursing, midwifery and some allied health professions subjects receive a non-repayable grant of at least £5,000 each academic year. Find out more on the NHS website.

The fees listed here are for the first year of full-time study if you start your course in the academic year 2025–26.

You will pay fees for each year of your course. Some fees may increase each year.

UK undergraduate and some postgraduate fees are regulated by the UK government and increases will not be more than the maximum amount allowed. Course fees that are not regulated may increase each year by up to 5% or RPI (whichever is higher).

If you are studying part-time your fee will usually be calculated based on the number of modules that you take.

Find out more

• Brighton Boost – cost of living help for our new undergrad students. Find out about how we can help with your study, accommodation or travel costs and more...
• Fees, bursaries, scholarships and government funding info for UK and international undergraduate students
• Student finance and budgeting while studying
• Read our student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf) for more on University of Brighton tuition fees.

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