Nursing and Midwifery facilities and equipment
Our Nursing and Midwifery students benefit from purpose-built research and teaching facilities such as the Living Lab, Helen McArdle House and more. With new investments bringing you state-of-the-art facilities, you can simulate any scenario you may encounter in your future career.
The Living Lab and the Sciences Complex
Located at City Campus, the Sciences Complex has benefitted from a multi-million pound investment in recent years, including the creation of the Living Lab.
This groundbreaking method of teaching includes simulation sessions within mock hospital wards, a dementia-friendly patient flat, as well as a hi-fidelity simulation suite and Point of Care Centre. Our nursing equipment allows for better education and training for those who wish to work in patient care, including using the latest technology to enhance treatment and diagnosis for patients.
Our facilities are designed to include interprofessional learning and give you the opportunity to collaborate with students from other disciplines within the University to simulate the real-life experience as closely as possible.
Find out more about our Living Lab and Helen McArdle House.
Helen McArdle House
Also based at City Campus, Helen McArdle House is where many of our healthcare courses are taught, including those within Nursing and Midwifery. There are a range of teaching and learning spaces available for students, as well as academic staff offices, who operate with an open-door policy.
Within Helen McArdle House, we have a mock hospital ward and a variety of suites, including OSCE suites, a Mental Health and Wellbeing Suite and Patient Diagnostic Suite. We use these different learning facilities to introduce our students to a range of scenarios and allow them to practise their profession in a safe space.
Children's Ward
Designed for those studying BSc (Hons) Children and Young People’s Nursing, the mock Children’s Ward located in Helen McArdle House provides the ideal opportunity to practise specific skills relating to caring for children.
The mock Children’s Ward contains colourful wall murals, cots and other medical and nursing equipment designed specifically for children. We also have baby and child interactive manikins which can be used to practise skills such as bathing and feeding a newborn, as well as providing intensive and critical care across the age spectrum.
Mental Health Ward
If you're studying BSc (Hons) Mental Health Nursing or some of our other courses, the mock Mental Health Ward is the ideal simulation environment to prepare you for the type of job roles you could pursue after graduation.
The mock Mental Health Ward is designed to mirror a real mental health ward and contains bedrooms, a day room, seclusion room and a treatment room. You can participate in a range of mental health nursing scenarios to allow you practise in a safe space before entering the world of employment.
Immersive Suite
Based within the Living Lab, you'll find a unique immersive simulation room where Nursing and Midwifery students can practise a range of scenarios in a safe environment. This is the perfect opportunity to enhance your clinical skills and receive immediate feedback from peers and staff.
The space allows one group of students to participate in the scenario while another group or a staff member observe through a live stream (via a TV screen). As well as allowing for feedback, this provides the ability to recreate the simulation to showcase points of success and potential improvement.
Simulation technology
One of the ways we create realistic simulations within Nursing and Midwifery is by using our simulation manikins. This allows for you to train in a realistic yet safe setting and develop your skills further.
The manikins we have available include SimMan patient simulators (SimMan 3G, SimMan ALS, Sim Junior and Sim Baby), CAE Apollo, and Caesar manikins. We also have anatomically realistic SimBodies and lower-fidelity simulation manikins.
SimMan and Apollo manikins can be pre-programmed with various medical scenarios and are capable of realistic physiological behaviour, including:
- Blood pressure
- A pulse
- Drug recognition technology (in SimMan 3G).
Simulation days
As part of our dedication to providing hands-on experience you can use in employment after graduating, we regularly host simulation days for our students. You'll participate in a variety of scenarios, including with students from other faculties and disciplines at the University.
Recently, we held a multi-faculty simulation day, where our Nursing students participated in assisting Paramedic, Policing, Medicine, and Law students. In the photo shown, our students are comforting a PCPI actor who played the patient's parent.
Library services
Our University library contains over 430,000 books and 9,000 journal titles, many of which are available in electronic format. As a Nursing or Midwifery student, you'll have access to several online databases including CINAHL, which is the world’s most comprehensive source of full text for nursing and allied health journals, with over 600 journals available. Other publications include:
- British National Formulary, which provides up-to-date guidance on prescribing, dispensing and administering medicines
- The British Pharmacopoeia, which is the authoritative collection of quality standards for UK medicines
- PubMed Central, which is a service of the US National Library of Medicine, featuring over 25 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals
- ScienceDirect, which is a leading full-text scientific database providing journal articles and book chapters relating to a variety of health and wellbeing studies.