Midwifery 2nd Registration

BSc (Hons)

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Key facts

UCAS code

B720

Start dates

September 2023

Course length

Full time: 24 months

Accreditation(s)

Approved by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC)

  • Nursing and Midwifery Council

Overview

Our Midwifery BSc is approved by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and accredited as Baby Friendly by UNICEF.

Midwives care for women and their families throughout pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period. They have an important role in promoting health and wellbeing. They are experts in, and the lead professionals for, women experiencing normal childbirth. They also provide and coordinate care, in partnership with other professionals, for women who have more complex needs. Our new course prepare students for all aspects of midwifery and has a focus on public health and physiology.

Our small cohorts mean you'll receive optimum support from the midwifery teaching team. On placement you will be supervised and assessed by experienced midwives.

Oxfordshire offers excellent graduate employment opportunities. We work with the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to arrange clinical placements in a range of maternity care settings. 

Our midwifery course is very popular so please apply early. We welcome applications from home, EU and international students.

How to apply

Entry requirements

Specific entry requirements

  • 120 CATS credits at level 4
  • registration as a level 1 adult nurse (RN1 or RNA) on the NMC register
  • the equivalent of 6 months' full-time relevant and current adult nursing practice in the past 18 months.

Securing a place is subject to both a satisfactory DBS and an Occupational Health clearance. If neither clearance has been completed prior to enrolment or a DBS issue has been declared on application, then enrolment may not be possible.

If enrolment has been agreed, then continuation on the programme will be contingent on satisfactory clearances.

Please also see the University's general entry requirements.

Screening

All applicants will be screened for fitness to practise and a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check will be made.

Selection process

Please note due to the competitive nature of this course, meeting the requirements alone does not guarantee shortlisting to interview as applications are assessed holistically

All Oxford Brookes University Health and Social Care Programmes conduct Value Based Recruitment (VBR). We recognise that values and attitudes have the greatest impact on the quality of people's care and their experiences.

VBR is a way of helping our Programme recruitment teams to assess the values, motives and attitudes of those who wish to work with people in health and social care settings. When we refer to values we mean, for example, the values included in the NHS constitution.

VBR focuses on 'how' and 'why' an applicant makes choices in how they act and seeks to explore reasons for their behaviour. Further details about the VBR framework can be found here.

Selection will be by interview and assessment of the following skills:

  • Literacy
  • Numeracy
  • Teamwork.

English language requirements

An IELTS score of 6.5 in all sections (reading, writing, listening and speaking) or equivalent scores in other tests such as TOFEL, OET, is required for ALL applicants whose first language is not English.

NMC English language requirement advice

Please also see the University's standard English language requirements.

International qualifications and equivalences

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English requirements for visas

If you need a student visa to enter the UK you will need to meet the UK Visas and Immigration minimum language requirements as well as the University's requirements. Find out more about English language requirements.

Terms and Conditions of Enrolment

When you accept our offer, you agree to the Terms and Conditions of Enrolment. You should therefore read those conditions before accepting the offer.

Application process

Applications for this course need to be made direct to the University.

Apply direct to the University

Tuition fees

Please see the fees note
Home (UK) full time
£9,250

International full time
£15,900

Home (UK) full time
£9,250

Questions about fees?

Contact Student Finance on:

Tuition fees

2023 / 24
Home (UK) full time
£9,250

International full time
£15,900

2024 / 25
Home (UK) full time
£9,250

Questions about fees?

Contact Student Finance on:

+44 (0)1865 483088

financefees@brookes.ac.uk

Please note, tuition fees for Home students may increase in subsequent years both for new and continuing students in line with an inflationary amount determined by government. Oxford Brookes University intends to maintain its fees for new and returning Home students at the maximum permitted level.

Tuition fees for International students may increase in subsequent years both for new and continuing students. 

The following factors will be taken into account by the University when it is setting the annual fees: inflationary measures such as the retail price indices, projected increases in University costs, changes in the level of funding received from Government sources, admissions statistics and access considerations including the availability of student support. 

How and when to pay

Tuition fee instalments for the semester are due by the Monday of week 1 of each semester. Students are not liable for full fees for that semester if they leave before week 4. If the leaving date is after week 4, full fees for the semester are payable.

  • For information on payment methods please see our Make a Payment page.
  • For information about refunds please visit our Refund policy page

Financial support and scholarships

All eligible midwifery students on courses from September 2020 (new and continuing) will receive a payment of at least £5,000 a year which they will not need to pay back.  For more information please visit NHS Learning Support Fund (LSF)

For general sources of financial support, see our Fees and funding pages.

Additional costs

Please be aware that some courses will involve some additional costs that are not covered by your fees. Specific additional costs for this course are detailed below.

Placement costs

These are costs that need to be paid for by midwifery students when travelling to and from clinical practice placements throughout Oxfordshire. As an example, a random sample of first year students spent approximately £30 - £700 travelling to placements during the first year of their programme. For students eligible for tuition fee and maintenance support from the Student Loans Company, these costs are recoverable through the Learning Support Fund. Midwifery students spend 50% of their programme in clinical placement. 

Other costs:

  • Books and other learning resources: £50 - £300
  • Shoes for practice to be worn with clinical uniform: £30 - £60
  • Equipment (for example stethoscope and watch) and suitable non clinical clothing for community placements; £60 - £250

Learning and assessment

This 2-year course consists of 16 modules.

As well as midwifery-specific knowledge, we cover;

  • Anatomy and physiology
  • evidence-based practice
  • research skills
  • the social, psychological, ethical, multicultural and interprofessional dimensions of midwifery care.

Academic study and clinical practice are of equal importance. 

You will be in full-time clinical placement during the weeks you are not at the University. During your clinical placements you will;

  • provide midwifery care in all settings including night, weekend and on-call duties
  • have qualified midwives as mentors to support you and help you gain the experience you need.

Oxfordshire offers the full range of midwifery placement settings. This includes free-standing birth centres, which have excellent reputations for the quality of their maternity services. These placement areas are solely for Oxford Brookes students. 
 

Midwifery

Study modules

Work placements

Compulsory modules

Work placements

Placements cover the whole of Oxfordshire and enable students to practise midwifery in a variety of settings. All students will work in the Women's Centre based at the John Radcliffe Hospital, part of the Oxford University Hospitals Foundation NHS Trust. Half of your placements will be in the community, which may include a placement in one of three free-standing midwifery-led units. Please note that you will have to organise your own travel arrangements to clinical placements. You might be working in: hospital maternity wards and/or a delivery suites within the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford; integrated midwifery-led units within the John Radcliffe Hospital and The Horton General Hospital, Banbury; health centres; free-standing midwifery-led units at Chipping Norton, Wantage and Wallingford; women's homes; children's centres.

Junior Year

Compulsory modules

Public Health in Midwifery 2: Human Rights and Contexts of Care

Anatomy and Physiology for Midwives

Midwifery Practice 3: Childbirth Emergencies

Women and Babies with Complex Needs

Midwifery Practice 4: The Midwife as Clinician

Senior Year

Compulsory modules

Philosophy for Midwifery Practice

Midwifery Practice 5: Implementing Caseloading

Midwifery Practice 6: Towards Autonomy

Dissertation

Please note: As our courses are reviewed regularly as part of our quality assurance framework, the modules you can choose from may vary from those shown here. The structure of the course may also mean some modules are not available to you.

Learning and teaching

Experience in the clinical setting is a key part of the course. We support this with teaching methods such as;

  • lectures
  • seminars
  • workshops
  • skills suite work
  • discussion
  • debate
  • exploration of case studies
  • group and individual tutorial sessions. 

In health and social care no professional group works in isolation so you will share your learning with other health care students from Oxford Brookes. This is vital to developing your teamwork skills and your understanding of the other roles you will encounter in practice.

We offer a very friendly and supportive environment in which to learn.

IT plays an increasingly important role in health care courses. You will have access to an extensive range of learning resources through Moodle, our electronic learning platform. 

Our courses adopt a student-centred approach to teaching and learning. And we consistently receive very high satisfaction ratings for the quality of our teaching and for student support in student surveys.

Assessment

Assessment methods used on this course

We use a wide range of assessments including;

  • case studies
  • reflection in and on practice
  • observed structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) held in our skills labs
  • a variety of written assessments, including some examinations.
  • poster presentations.

These assessments ensure that you are competent at both;

  • academic writing
  • practical and emergency skills.

Grading of practice is a central feature of practice assessment. It accounts for approximately twenty-five per cent of the overall degree classification.

After you graduate

Career prospects

Careers for midwives include:

  • practice in hospital and community settings
  • specialist practice, for instance high-dependency care
  • independent practice
  • consultant midwife posts
  • teaching
  • research.

The courses comply with EU regulations for midwifery, so your qualification will be recognised in EU countries.

Professional accreditation

All students graduating from our midwifery programs will be competent in the Newborn Infant Physical Examination (NIPE). 

Following successful completion of the 2-year full-time or the 21-month post-experience BSc (Hons) course, you will be eligible to apply for professional registration as a midwife with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).

Please note that NMC approval of this course is subject to review and can be withdrawn at any time.

Further study

Many of our students go on to study at Master's level and beyond. Several past students have gone to work abroad and to take up jobs of responsibility in midwifery and in related areas of health care.

Free language courses

Free language courses are available to full-time undergraduate and postgraduate students on many of our courses, and can be taken as a credit on some courses.

Information from Discover Uni

Full-time study

Programme changes:
On rare occasions we may need to make changes to our course programmes after they have been published on the website. For more information, please visit our changes to programmes page.