Accessibility statement

Welcome to the Department of Health Sciences

Our large, multidisciplinary department offers a broad range of educational programmes in the health and social care field. From diploma through to postgraduate levels, professional health-related teaching programmes are informed by the latest research evidence.

Nursing and midwifery

Challenging courses enable our students to achieve professional registration as nurses or midwives. Teaching is designed with the needs of employers in mind. It is developed in close collaboration with commissioners, the NHS and private sector partners. Hence we have an excellent record for students achieving immediate employment after their pre-registration nursing and midwifery programmes.

We have over 1,650 students enrolled on our pre-registration nursing, midwifery and post-registration programmes. We recruit to all four fields of nursing – adult, child health, learning disability and mental health nursing. 

Post-registration

In terms of post–registration provision we offer degrees, short courses and study days across a range of areas, including primary care, mental health, long term conditions, non-medical prescribing and mentorship.

The programmes have been developed in collaboration with strategic partners including a range of senior managers working in acute, community and primary care settings as well as education commissioners. Our courses are tailored to meet changing workforce demand in line with national drivers.

Our post-registration portfolio is open to a wide range of health and social care practitioners including post-registration nurses, midwives and health visitors, as well as allied health professionals such as physiotherapists, podiatrists, paramedics and pharmacists, ensuring there is always an opportunity to maintain or increase skills and knowledge that promote career development and underpin safe, high quality care. They are also tailored to support service transformation, service improvement and meet the contemporary requirements of a primary care led healthcare environment.

Postgraduate

We currently have some 142 postgraduate students working with us and provide an exciting learning environment with a flexible programme of modules and a range of study pathways that are relevant to the needs of health professionals, managers and those seeking a career in health related research nationally and internationally.

Research

The excellence of our research was recognised in the Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021) in which we were rated 6th in the UK for research power in the Times Higher Education ranking with over 92 per cent of our research rated as world-leading (4*) for impact.

Our research is characterised by interdisciplinary and international collaboration, a robust scientific foundation and relevance and impact for policy and practice.

We have research teams working in a number of clinical areas, including cancer epidemiology and cardiovascular health; health services and policy; mental health and addiction; public health and society; trials and statistics; nursing and midwifery. Researchers are working to develop and apply rigorous methodology in randomised trials, systematic reviews, healthcare statistics, epidemiology and qualitative methods.

Producing evidence does not in itself improve health, so we work to find out how evidence is translated into practice, in particular by research into communication and decision making in health care. We also inform and evaluate health policy in various areas including workforce and inequalities in health.

All our research teams are multidisciplinary, typically involving clinicians, statisticians, health economists, psychologists, sociologists and epidemiologists. Research funding comes from a number of sources including the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), the Department of Health (DH), the British Heart Foundation (BHF), Leukaemia Research Fund (LRF), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Medical Research Council (MRC).

We look forward to welcoming you to our large and vibrant department.

Professor Karl Atkin
Head of Department