As the latest addition to our Nursing and Midwifery courses, here, you can explore everything you need to know about the BSc (Hons) Midwifery Practice degree – from the skills you’ll gain to the careers you can look forward to when you graduate.
Who is the Midwifery course suitable for?
The BSc (Hons) Midwifery Practice course is a full-time undergraduate degree studied over three years. It’s aimed at applicants who have an interest in becoming a midwife – supporting women/persons throughout pregnancy, labour, and after birth, ensuring they have a safe experience.
For entry onto our midwifery course, we would usually ask for a minimum of 128 UCAS points gained from at least two A Levels or equivalent, which should include a science-related subject. You must also show evidence of recent academic study within the last five years at entry level. If you already hold a bachelor’s degree, this must be a 2:2 or above and must also have been obtained within the last five years.
What skills and knowledge will I gain from studying for the Midwifery degree?
This midwifery course will equip you with the essential skills and knowledge required to become a midwife, leading to your eligibility to register with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) when you graduate. During the course, you’ll apply a biopsychosocial model to enrich your practice as a midwife, tackling health inequalities and providing evidence-based practice.
The degree embeds mental health within maternity throughout each module, exploring how the role of a midwife can support those women/persons and their families with mental health issues. Our modules cover an exciting range of topics, allowing you to gain in-depth knowledge and many valuable midwifery skills such as communication and teamwork, empathy, problem-solving, and observation.
"My favourite part of the course is the practical sessions, where we wear our uniforms and spend our day on the mock ward. We’re taught valuable skills that are essential to learn prior to going out on placement. The facilities and the support of the lecturing team are first-class and I look forward to an amazing career as a midwife."
Terri Jolly
BSc (Hons) Midwifery Practice
Teaching and learning on the BSc (Hons) Midwifery Practice course
Teaching on the midwifery course is varied and is delivered via lectures and seminars, clinical skills simulation, online/e-learning, and tutorials. We have some fantastic facilities on City Campus at our Living Lab and Helen McArdle House, which have seen a multi-million-pound investment over recent years. These include manikins – including a SimMom and SimBaby – to support interactive simulation, mock hospital wards, and the immersive suite, which is a space designed to recreate scenarios as close to reality as possible. While on campus, you’ll also have the opportunity to practise with our Patient, Carer and Public Involvement participants (PCPIs), who are here to support your learning in a safe environment.
You’ll undertake unpaid clinical placements at each level of the midwifery degree, which will allow you to gain hands-on, practical experience. Making up 50% of the course, placements give you the chance to apply the theory you’ve learnt at university to your own practice. They’ll take place with our partner NHS Trusts across the region and will be in a wide variety of different settings so that you can gain some diverse experience. Read more about our nursing and midwifery placements.
How will having a degree in midwifery help my career?
England is currently facing a midwife shortage, with the NHS short of the equivalent of around 2,500 full-time employees, so it’s never been a better time to consider a career as a midwife. Most graduates of this degree will go on to work within the NHS, and midwifery jobs can be in a range of settings including hospitals, in the community, and in maternity centres. Starting salaries for newly qualified midwives are at band 5 in the NHS, which currently starts at £29,970. Some graduates begin their career in midwifery by going into private healthcare, such as private hospitals, independent practices, or the armed forces.
Once you’ve gained more experience as a midwife, there will be plenty of opportunities for career progression if you decide you’d like to move up into more senior practitioner roles such as a consultant midwife, which offers the potential to earn a salary of over £50,000 a year. Other roles could include a supervisor of midwives, unit manager, and eventually the head or director of midwifery. You may also decide you want to specialise in a certain area, for example, neonatal nursing or ultrasound, or study for further qualifications.
If you finish the course and decide to pursue a different career path, there are lots of alternative jobs you could get with a midwifery degree, as the skills you’ll have gained will be transferable to other areas of employment. These could include working in research, education, mentoring, charity work, or other health support roles.
Visit our BSc (Hons) Midwifery Practice course page to find out more. Or why not book onto one of our Open Days to see for yourself all the fantastic things we have to offer at Sunderland?
Published: 16 November 2023