Specialist Community Public Health Nursing MSc and PGDip

About the Course

Current government policy recognises the need for specialist practitioner nurses who are prepared to take on leadership and management roles, develop research skills and be innovative and creative in practice.

This postgraduate diploma aims to develop specialist practitioners who are competent to practise and able to influence and facilitate change within the community nursing environment. It enables nurses to qualify as community specialist practitioners able to influence and facilitate change within the community environment.

Aims

The following specialisms are available:

Health Visiting: Develops skills in the promotion of health and the prevention of ill health at the individual, group and community level.
Occupational Health Nursing: Develops skills in the provision of healthcare in the workplace.
School Nursing: Develops practitioners able to lead a school nursing team and plan quality health care for school children and their families.

Apply Online

Please visit the London Deanery website to apply for Health Visiting and School Nursing programmes.

Information about how to apply and obtain sponsorship is explained on the Specialist Community Public Health Nursing recruitment pages.

Enquiries

Lorina Stewart
SCPHN Course Administrator
School of Health Sciences and Social Care
Brunel University
Email communityhealth@brunel.ac.uk
Tel +44 (0)1895 268833
Web Community Health Nursing / Health Studies subject pages

Related Courses

Special Features

You will spend half of the course on work placement in a specialist practice of your choice. You will also undertake a combination of core and professionally-specific modules, the latter of which you undertake during the practice-based component of the course

Course Content

The Postgraduate Diploma comprises 50% theory and 50% practice. Students undertake five modules.

Modules (All Core)

Specialist Community Public Health Nursing Practice

Preparation of students to meet the challenges of the SCPHN role
Introduction to a wide range of appropriate and stimulating learning opportunities
Comprehensive experience in the student’s primary sphere of SCPHN
Introduction to public health practice in alternative settings

Professional Perspectives in Specialist Community Public Health Nursing

The profession of health visiting – a critique of models and theoretical frameworks underpinning public health nursing
Role and function of health visiting at an individual, group, community and population level
Community profiling searching for health needs
Assessment of need – a client centred approach
Common assessment framework
Supporting families
Parenting
Mental health issues
Nutrition and health
Human development
Health surveillance and screening
Immunisations
Improving inter-personal skills
Evidence-based practice in health visiting
The public health movement and the building of health alliances.
Caseload and workload management, working within contractual arrangements.
Alternative specialist community public health nursing strategies – a community development approach.
The social context of specialist community public health nursing and public, private and voluntary sector provision.
Influencing policy in a dynamic environment.
Health promotion and inequalities; poverty and homelessness.
Legal and ethical issues related to health visiting.
Child protection and safeguarding children.
Child and family protection issues – domestic violence; substance misuse; multi-agency approaches.
Children with special needs - working in partnership, promoting health and planning care.
National Service Frameworks.
Nurse prescribing which meets the required content laid down in the NMC’s (2006) Standards of proficiency for nurse and midwife prescribers.

Evidence Based Practice for Public Health

Research principles:
- The foundations of knowledgeDefining knowledge in nursing, sources of evidence for nursing
- Philosophical issues in research
- Testability
- Theory and practice
- Assessing the value of different sources of evidence for public health practice
- Establishing the rigour of evidence (eg reliability, validity and credibility)
- Quality, quantity, and measurement
- Epidemiological concepts and techniques
- The research literatures of public health nursing
- Strategies for disseminating and implementing evidence

Research methods:
- Exploration of evidence based public health practiceResearch paradigms (positivism, naturalism, critical theory)
- Designs associated with the main paradigms (eg experiments, surveys, case studies, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography, action research)
- Formulation of research questions and hypotheses
- Research design and sampling
- Methods of data collection including observation, interviewing, and questionnaires and other self-report methods
- Interpretation and write-up of research
- Ethical issues related to research
- Writing research proposals

Reading and writing skills for research
- Systematic reviews of literatureReviewing research articles
- Searching databases
- Logic
- Structuring reports
- Referencing
- Writing a literature review

Promoting Public Health

The current context of community nursing practice
Concepts of health
Health needs assessment/profiling
Patterns of health, illness and disease and their relationship to groups and segments in society
Judgements, concerned with tensions between health and social needs
Sociology of health and illness
Social policy
Inequalities in health
Public health practice
Debates around health promotion, health education and disease prevention strategies
Principles of health promotion
Overview of models of health promotion and health promotion planning
Health promotion planning process: research based practice and needs assessment
Health beliefs and behaviour
Working in partnership with clients and other professionals to meet health needs
Facilitation and teaching skills
Group work skills
Community development
Ethical and legal issues, especially the legal context of community health and issues surrounding professional accountability and confidentiality
Cultural issues
Equal opportunities and interpersonal skills designed to develop effective and professional self-management
Anti-discriminatory practice
Evaluation
National service frameworks.

Management of Public Health Practice

Theories of decision making, deductive and inductive processes
Domain specific knowledge and expertise in decision making
Problem-solving
Decision making in health care settings, specifically within the community
Cognitive reasoning skills
Development of clinical reasoning skills
Methods for the study of clinical reasoning and decision making in clinical practice
The role of contextual factors in decision making within community settings (political, economic, ethical and social policy)
Policy and decision making in community settings
Leadership – theory, research, skills, styles and strategies
Management – theory, research, skills, styles and strategies
Clinical governance, audit and quality assurance
Change – theory, research, skills, styles and strategies
Organisational learning – theory, research and strategies
Organisational culture – theory, research and evaluation
Organisational analysis – strategies for diagnoses
Organisational development and transformation
Professional culture – theory, research and evaluation
The current social and organisational context of change
Change as professional ideology
Change as organisational ideology – Fordism, Post-Fordism, Post-Modernism
Analysis of levels of change – individual, group and organisation
Aims, visions and missions
Economics and cost-benefit analysis
Ethics in leadership and management
Managing change through action research
Change-promoting strategies
Managing organisational and professional resistance
Managing organisational and professional conflict
Partnership working/overcoming barriers
Project development in practice
Team working
Managing teams, skill mix and service planning
Staff appraisal and self-appraisal – person effectiveness skills
Interviewing and CVs

Students wishing to progress onto the MSc undertake the dissertation module.

Dissertation

You will generally work within the current research activities of the academic staff working in an area relevant to your disciplinary major. The refinement of the topic will be done in conjunction with your supervisor.

The topic of research may include a quantitative project focusing on the measurement and analysis of data relevant to a question from within the discipline of your major, a qualitative project focusing on the professional (clinical) practice from within the discipline of your major, or a systematic review of the evidence relevant to a question from within the discipline of your major. This latter approach may itself be either qualitative or quantitative. In all cases final approval for the topic is subject to a supervisor’s or course leader’s approval.

Topics may rely on:

the collection and analysis of primary data;
the secondary analysis of data collected or being used by the supervisor or
the secondary analysis of data in the public domain or held in a data-archive.

Where necessary you will need to seek and obtain the approval of relevant ethics committees before proceeding with the collection or analysis of data.

Careers

In the field of post registration community nursing, over 95% of practitioners qualify through the University and obtain employment within their chosen field.

Placements

Fifty per cent of the course involves supervised work placements within the chosen area of specialist practice. You will be allocated an experienced practice teacher who provides support and undertakes assessment in practice. Strong links have been forged between the University, practice teachers, managers and purchasers to ensure a quality programme.

Fees for 2013/14 entry

UK/EU

Health Visiting: NHS fee (full-time / part-time)
Occupational Health Nursing: £4,620 full-time, £2,310 part-time
School Nursing: NHS fee (full-time / part-time)

International

Health Visiting: £15,000 full-time
Occupational Health Nursing: £15,000 full-time, £7,500 part-time
School Nursing: £15,000 full-time

An additional 60 credit module fee is charged for the dissertation for the award of MSc.

Overseas students who are funded by the NHS will be charged the NHS fee. Fees should be available early summer 2012, however this fee is paid by NHS London. Self funded overseas students will be charged the displayed fee.

UK/EU students: £7,000 full-time; £3,500 part-time

Fees quoted are per annum and are subject to an annual increase.

Entry Requirements

Qualified nurse with active registration on the NMC Nursing Register. HV applicants could have active registration on the NMC Midwifery Register rather than on the Nursing Register.
Two satisfactory references of which one should be an academic reference.
A Diploma of Higher Education or the equivalent of 120 level 3 credits. All applicants are required to be interviewed to ascertain their professional readiness to undertake the programme.

English Language Requirements

IELTS: 7 (min 6 in all areas)
TOEFL Paper test: 600 (TWE 4.5)
TOEFL Internet test: 100 (R20, L20, S20, W20)
Pearson: 66 (51 in all subscores)
BrunELT 70% (min 60% in all areas)

Brunel also offers our own BrunELT English Test and accept a range of other language courses. We also have a range of Pre-sessional English language courses, for students who do not meet these requirements, or who wish to improve their English.

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