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First Nursing Associate students who trained on the frontline during pandemic graduate as work completes on new Health and Allied Professions Centre at NTU

The first cohort of Nursing Associate students to study at Nottingham Trent University’s Institute of Health and Allied Professions have completed their course after working on the frontline in health and social care settings throughout the pandemic.

    The exterior of the HAP Centre
    Health and Allied Professions Centre

    The role of Nursing Associate was introduced in England in 2017 as a way to bridge the gap between healthcare support workers and registered nurses.

    The students began training in January 2020. They have since undertaken placements in adult, child, mental health and learning disability areas in a variety of settings including nursing homes, GP surgeries and hospital wards, including Covid wards.

    Kathryn Shilling, senior lecturer in Nursing and Health Care and Nursing Associate Programme course leader at NTU’s School of Social Sciences, said: “This inspirational group has worked full-time while having to adapt to a huge amount of challenges and continue to provide care to people in difficult circumstances. Some of them have also faced personal challenges and many were having to study at the same time as home schooling their children.”

    Ellie Barrie
    Ellie Barrie, Nursing Associate

    Ellie Barrie, 25, hopes to top-up her training to become a registered nurse in general practice. She said: “It has been challenging, especially with the pressure of being a student and being out of my comfort zone, while also trying to keep my family, patients and myself safe. But I learnt a lot being exposed to different settings and I particularly enjoyed my community and mental health placements. There have been a lot of changes in healthcare over the last two years and it’s so rewarding to see how far those of us on the course have come and where we are now.”

    Jackie Brocklehurst, regional deputy head of Nursing and Midwifery at Health Education England, said: “I would like to formally congratulate these students, whose resilience has been second to none. They haven’t experienced a practice setting without Covid. The role of Nursing Associate is relatively new to the nursing family, and we have barely scratched the surface of what it can achieve.”

    Their course completion comes as work completes on a new facility which will see healthcare students develop their skills in state-of-the-art surroundings.

    The new Health and Allied Professions Centre at NTU’s Clifton Campus features simulated healthcare environments including hospital wards, consultation rooms and counselling rooms. The settings will also include patient manikins to give students the experience of working with men, women and children with a variety of injuries.

    Beds in a mock hospital ward
    The HAP Centre features mock hospital wards

    Two additional floors provide office and flexible teaching spaces, including removable seating in large classrooms to allow for creative learning approaches such as role play.

    The Centre serves as a new base for the Institute of Health and Allied Professions, which offers a range of specialist courses such as Adult, Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Nursing, Paramedic Science and Public Health.

    Dr Anne Felton, head of the Institute of Health and Allied Professions, said: “Contemporary registered healthcare professionals are required to be dynamic and flexible. As well as providing compassionate care, they need to be able to think critically, make complex decisions and lead. This new facility offers state of the art clinical skills facilities which represent hospital and community healthcare settings. The Centre provides excellent study, social and classroom spaces that enable lecturers to engage students in a range of teaching approaches to help them develop the knowledge and skills for their profession.”

    Executive Dean of the School of Social Sciences, Professor Sara Owen, added: “Simulations and virtual reality are providing huge opportunities in healthcare education and we are proud of the technological advances and facilities on offer in this building. They will enable us to make these creative and innovative approaches an integral part of our education and give our students the best possible experience.”

    The scheme was led by NTU’s Capital Development Team within the Estates Department, who worked with an external team of consultants and Henry Brothers as the main contractor

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      About Nottingham Trent University

      Nottingham Trent University (NTU) received the Queens Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in 2021 for cultural heritage science research. It is the second time that NTU has been bestowed the honour of receiving a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for its research, the first being in 2015 for leading-edge research on the safety and security of global citizens.

      NTU was awarded Outstanding Support for Students 2020 (Times Higher Education Awards). It was the University of the Year 2019 (Guardian University Awards, UK Social Mobility Awards), Modern University of the Year 2018 (Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide) and University of the Year 2017 (Times Higher Education Awards).

      NTU is one of the UK’s largest universities, with over 33,000 students and more than 4,000 staff located across five campuses. It has an international student population of 4,000 and an NTU community representing around 160 countries.

      In the past 15 years, NTU has invested £450 million in tools, technology, and facilities.

      NTU is in the UK’s top 10 for number of applications and ranked first for accepted offers (2019 UCAS UG acceptance data) It is also among the UK’s top five recruiters of students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

      75% of NTU students go on to graduate-level employment or graduate-entry education / training within fifteen months of graduating (Guardian University Guide 2021).

      NTU is 4th globally (and 3rd in the UK) for sustainability in the 2021 UI Green Metric University World Rankings (out of more than 900 participating universities).

    Published on 20 January 2022
    • Category: Press office; School of Social Sciences