The Graduate Certificate in Neonatal Nursing is for practitioners registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and who are currently employed in neonatal care environments.
It will prepare you to critically explore the management of ill newborn babies in a variety of settings in order to develop and expand your role in neonatal care.
The course at UWS gave me strong evidence based knowledge and the ability to question practice in order to provide the best care for our babies and their families. The implementation of Family Integrated Care and the vital importance of developmentally supportive care to optimise outcomes is now embedded in our practice. I would commend the course at UWS to anyone keen to develop their professional practice.
Carolyn McConnell, Neonatal Nursing graduate
The Neonatal course at UWS is a fantastic course that has enhanced my knowledge and understanding on many aspects of neonatal care. The course has enabled me to provide evidence based care to the babies and families I look after in particular, highlighting the importance of family centred care and developmental care to ensure the best outcomes are achieved. I highly recommend the course to anyone who is keen to further develop their professional practice.
Rebecca McKnight, Neonatal Nursing graduate
We welcome Scottish, UK and international students and consider all applicants on an individual basis.
Don’t worry if your qualifications are not listed here, we take a range of factors into account when assessing your application and are happy to consider other alternative combinations of qualifications and experience
If you are applying with an EU or non-EU qualification, please check our Postgraduate & Post-experience Entry Requirements page which gives more information about country-specific entry requirements.
Please note that all applicants for the PgCert Neonatal Care (QiS) are required to be registered with the UK's NMC. The NMC requires professional registrants to demonstrate a minimum competence in English Language with an IELTS overall score of 7.0, or equivalent. See below for more details.
You will require an Ordinary Bachelor’s degree in a relevant health care specialty.
Prior Learning may be accepted for the purpose of gaining credit towards the academic award.
You must be a registered Health Care Professional and hold active registration with the UK's Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC).
You must be employed in the field of Neonatal Care and have a minimum of six months current experience.
For applicants whose first language is not English, the University sets a minimum English Language proficiency level. The qualifications below must have been gained within two years of the start of your course.
General English language requirements at UWS: International English Language Testing System (IELTS) Academic module (not General Training)
Exceptions to this level of IELTS scoring exist for some accredited or professionally-recognised courses (see section below for more details).
SOCIAL WORK DEGREES
For our BA (Hons) Social Work and MSc Social Work programmes, applicants are required to have an IELTS score as follows:
All stated English tests are acceptable for admission for both home/EU and international students for this programme:
For our research degrees (MRes, MPhil, PhD, DBA, DProf) applicants are required to have an IELTS score as follows:
For Health, Nursing & Midwifery courses that lead to, or require professional registration with the Nursing & Midwifery Council, applicants are required to have an IELTS or Occupational English Test (OET)*.
For such courses, the IELTS score is as follows:
* Note that the Occupational English Test (OET) will now be accepted in addition to IELTS as proof of a Nurse's English Language Competence (Nursing & Midwifery Council, 2019).
For our BSc (Hons) Applied Biomedical Science, BSc (Hons) Biomedical Science and MSc Advanced Biomedical Science programmes, applicants are required to have an IELTS score as follows:
For our Certificate of Higher Education courses, applicants are required to have an IELTS score as follows:
TOEFL IBT*: 78; no sub-test less than:
* Please note that TOEFL is still acceptable for admission to this programme for both home/EU and international students.
For international students, the Home Office has confirmed that the University can choose to use TOEFL to make its own assessment of English language ability for visa applications to degree level courses. We therefore still accept TOEFL tests taken in the last two years for admission to this programme.
West African Senior School Certificate of Education (WASSCE) including acceptance of WAEC Scratchcard*
*UWS will accept a WAEC scratchcard confirming that an applicant has achieved C6 or above as evidence of meeting English language requirement from Nigeria if the student graduated within the last 5 years. After 5 years applicants would be required to provide the WAEC Certificate.
Applicants who do not meet the minimum English language requirements have the option to study one of our preparatory and pre-sessional English courses. The UWS courses available are:
The GradCert consists of three SCQF Level 10 modules, normally undertaken over one year:
The Special Care Neonatal Nursing and the Neonatal Intensive Care / High Dependency modules are delivered using a blended learning approach with some attendance at the Lanarkshire campus and the remainder of the teaching and learning activities being delivered via the virtual learning environment.
You are expected to undertake a significant element of independent study during the course.
Within the Neonatal Work-based Learning module, you will consolidate learning attained in the special care and intensive care modules and complete a range of clinical competencies supported by a mentor in practice. his will normally be undertaken in your own area of practice.
You will be able to further develop professionally within neonatal nursing, mapping your continuing professional development to the Health Career Framework and Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF)
Following at least a two-year period of being qualified in neonatal care, students may undertake an MSc in Advanced Neonatal Practice.
With cutting edge facilities, specialist knowledge and world-leading and internationally excellent expertise, we aim to develop research outputs that have a tangible, early and positive impact on society across the globe.
DiscoverWe will always try to make sure that we publish accurate course information but we do not accept responsibility for any mistakes or omissions. We will also try to make sure that we deliver our courses in line with our published information. However, we may not always be able to do so and you can find further information about this in our enrolment terms and conditions.