Birmingham City University plays a major part in ‘powering the front line’ of our essential health, education and social care services within the city, throughout the region and across the country.
We provide training to nurses, midwives, paramedics, physiotherapists and other healthcare professionals. We also provide professional policing courses and have the UK’s only contract to train and educate the Armed Forces’ nurses, radiographers and operating department practitioners. This year, in 2021, we celebrate 50 years of teaching social work.
We are the largest trainer of undergraduate nurses in the UK, offering degree courses in different specialisms and nursing apprenticeships, which we have developed with local employers.
Health Education England chose us as one of seven universities across the country to deliver a new blended learning nursing degree, featuring a mixture of online and face-to-face teaching. We’re also one of only four universities that Health Education England has selected to develop a similar blended learning degree for Midwifery.
We teach the teachers as well, training nearly 1,400 primary and secondary school teachers across undergraduate and postgraduate courses every year. We have links with more than 900 primary schools and over 200 secondary schools across the Midlands, ensuring our students have a wide range of essential classroom experience.
Onsite training forms a core part of our healthcare courses as well with placements available in both NHS and private settings. Our students also stepped up during the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost 500 of our nursing students were deployed on placement on the front line during the crisis and those on other healthcare courses supported key services as part of their studies.
We have adapted our teaching as a result of the pandemic. While placements have continued where safe to do so, we have made the best possible use of online resources and alternative teaching methods. The Department of Health Social and Social Care commended our simulated training events as part of their announcement of additional funding for nursing training in March 2021.
We are also supporting workforce development through a range of CPD courses aimed at those already in service. We will continue to invest in new technologies and facilities, build links with employers and professional bodies and develop our staff to train the people we need to power the front line.
We’re proud to be playing our part in shaping our future public services workforce.
