2 year degrees? Help please

Recently I've been looking into being a neonatal nurse. I know the job will be perfect for me.

I've been to uni, wasted money and way too much time to be honest. I really would love to do a two year quicker course in nursing/ children's nursing. It's a little difficult finding shorter courses. I don't have funding for 3 year one.

Help

Reply 1

Anonymous #1

Original post by jelly1000

Nursing isn't something that can be shortened due to the need to spend a certain amount of hours in theory and practice. However as an exception degre you can claim full funding.

I did read you can do a two year course and the amount of training, future prospects/ salary are the same doing 3/4 year degrees. It's trouble finding the two year courses. I can get some funding

Reply 2

vanessa_nicole

Original post by Anonymous

I did read you can do a two year course and the amount of training, future prospects/ salary are the same doing 3/4 year degrees. It's trouble finding the two year courses. I can get some funding

You can do a Postgraduate Nursing Degree which is 2 years and if you apply for 2017 entry, it will be the last year that it is NHS Funded. 🙂

Reply 3

mel_l218

There are shorter postgraduate degrees at some universities, however some universities only accept certain degrees. I'd recommend contacting prospective universities & seeing what they say, I'm pretty sure both children's nursing and adult nursing are acceptable degrees to work as a neonatal nurse, however keep in mind that the degree will involve more than neonatal nursing & you might need to gain experience after gaining the degree to work in a neonatal unit. So you need to be sure you want to do the whole degree wherever your placement may take you.
It's worth going to open days & talking to current students & lecturers about your plans, one thing I noticed at one open day, was that the lecturer made it clear that the postgraduate degree is very intense & within a few months of starting the degree you go on placement.
And don't think of your previous degree as a waste of time, use your experiences to show why you will do well with the nursing course & how the life experience you have with make you a good nurse.
I hope this helps & good luck!

(And the bursary stops summer 2017, from September 2017 it will be a student loan)

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 4

lilibet01

most postgrad PGDip courses require 570-650 hours of clinical experience. That's why you can fit it into two years. It's an NMC requirement to complete 2300 hours of placement and 2300 hours of theory in order to be registered.
Found this re funding

https://www.ucas.com/ucas/postgraduate/finance-and-support/postgraduate-fees-and-funding/new-postgraduate-loans-2016

(edited 7 years ago)

Reply 5

vanessa_nicole

A couple of months ago, I applied for Adult Nursing 2017 entry for both BSc (3 years) and PGDip (2 years) - having had a previous BSc Healthcare Degree. I got into all of my choices and I am going to start the BSc Adult Nursing Degree in Febuary 2017. There are some universities that are still NHS Funded - BSc bursary stops Summer 2017 onwards and PGDip bursary stops Summer 2018 onwards.

Reply 6

PaediatricStN

Original post by Anonymous

Hi OP,

I'm a qualified children's nurse. Have you got some kind of experience with neonates? Nursing is a really demanding profession and so it's important you have some experience to make sure it is definitely right for you.

If you want to go into neonatal nursing, children's nursing is the best option. Some neonatal units do still take qualified adult nurses, however they much prefer paeds nurses.

Also, if you do children's you are far more likely to get a neonatal placement, however on adults this would not be the case. There are vast differences between adult and neonatal nursing/medicine and so you may find the transition as a newly qualified particularly challenging if you were to study adult nursing, and go straight into a neonatal unit. Things that are very different are,for example, the drug calculations (Generally harder), safeguarding issues, and the closeness in which we work with parents and families.

Unless you already have a science-based degree, there is no other way to become a nurse other than studying for a 3 year undergraduate degree. The funding for nursing degrees has very recently changed - completely over to a loan system, starting from the September 2017 intake, and therefore you would need to apply for tuition and maintenance fee loans if/when you do apply.

Hope that helps!

Reply 7

Blackstarr

Original post by Anonymous

I don't know if this might be helpful but I have searched online for "charitable" funding and some sort of scholarships for nursing.

I have found some.

Maybe, you should do that to because although the bursary has stopped, it does not mean you can't get funded by other parties.

Also, I have heard that some universities offer some grants for both undergraduate and post graduate students, so you might want to look this up too.

Edit: If the government won't provide you anymore funding, then hustle, look for places/ charitable organisations who will.