The Bachelor of Nursing Degree (BN) was established in 1972. Since its establishment it has been restructured to conform to the Project 2000 format.
It is a four year course, leading to a degree in Nursing and a professional registration, with three branches of nursing currently being offered - Adult Nursing, Care of the Child and Mental Health Care.
Background
Professional and political factors have shaped the BN degree course. In 1972 the Briggs Report made several recomendations including a stronger academic base in nursing, supernumerary status for student nurses, and a two-level education programme. As a direct resut of this report the following bodies were established:
In 1985 The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) set up a commission to look at nurse education, and a report `A New Dispensation for Nursing� was published. Building on the Briggs report, it stressed the importance of taking nursing into colleges of higher eductaion. Similar recommendations were made in a report published the same year by the English National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and Helath Visiting. In 1986, the UKCC published the Project 2000 report which has become the basis for re-structuring nurse education throughout the UK. The present curriculum of the BN course draws on the recommendations of that report.
The specific recommendations of Project 2000 included:
Details of the Degree
The current Bachelor of Nursing (BN) course at the School of Nursing Studies, University of Wales College of Medicine, offers a degree programme comprising a two year common foundation programme leading to branches in Adult nursing, Mental Health nursing or Children�s nursing.
Philosophy of nursing within the school is:
To produce a competent first level practitioner of nursing.
The Education philosophy and strategy being that:
The importance of `research based teaching� is stressed throughout the course.