Nursing (Leadership and Research)

Course summary

Designed to support your early career (preceptorship period), our Nursing (Research and Leadership) MSc allows you to build on your existing nursing skills and focus on developing research and leadership expertise at a higher level, enabling you to respond competently to the complexities of clinical practice.

You will continue your transition as a clinical practitioner and progress as a professional who can deliver compassionate, safe and effective care as an autonomous and reflective practitioner, whilst supporting quality improvement and innovation in the rapidly changing health and social care sector.

Expert academics will guide you through current strategic management thinking around complexity and change. You will examine the origins of leadership thinking so you can apply your understanding of leadership in the practice environment. The course focuses on how leaders shape the culture of organisations, with potential leadership problems and their solutions examined and identified, alongside analysis of areas such as making sense of change.

You will develop confident reflective skills, so you can understand your influence and that of others and explore the principles of health leadership and team working through peer-supported learning. Your research expertise will improve as you explore evidence-informed practice and the research skills required to develop a project proposal plan, which will prepare you for a substantive piece of independent work.

Choosing an optional module provides you with the opportunity to sync your studies with a specific area of interest. Current choices on this programme include analysing how digital technology and innovation have a role to play in both improving healthcare and the use of health informatics. Or, you could choose to acquire knowledge about healthcare ethics and law, enhancing your ability to critically think on the subject and look at law as it relates to healthcare professionals. The final option focuses on facilitating the learning journey, assessing the principles of teaching and learning within healthcare and reflecting on areas such as your own experiences, the experience of others, and observation feedback from your own teaching.

You will analyse how current healthcare policy is shaped by contemporary research within your area of practice, and improve your analytical expertise in selecting, reviewing and synthesising research evidence. Our module on quality and improvement in healthcare will develop your critical knowledge and understanding of the various factors that impact quality provision, by looking at areas such as the role of regulators, examining existing policy and exploring the role stakeholders play in the quality of healthcare outcomes.

In the final part of the programme, you have a choice of undertaking a research dissertation or a work-based project. The dissertation will demonstrate your research skills and capabilities in designing, producing and reporting of an independent research project. The alternative work-based project will involve you producing a comprehensive assignment that focuses on a specific area of your current professional responsibilities, chosen in agreement with your supervisor, employer and work-based facilitator.

Your career

Upon successful completion of this programme you will strengthen your professional clinical skills and develop a key set of leadership and research skills that will allow you to advance your career as an effective leader in your chosen specialism, whilst effecting positive change in the healthcare sector.

You could progress into roles such as:

• Consultant Nurse
• Advanced Nurse Practitioner
• Ward Manager
• Director of Nursing
• Nurse Researcher
• Clinical Practice Educator
• Academic in Higher Education