Roxanne Barrington-Stoute’s daughter was born at 24 weeks, and weighed just over 1lb. She spent nine months in hospital before going home. It was a time that tested Barrington-Stoute beyond anything she had ever known, but seeing the dedicated nurses save her daughter’s life gave her a new purpose. When her daughter was six, she left her job as a human resources manager and signed up on the BSc (Hons) Nursing degree at Bucks New Uni.
Six years after graduating, and with a whole range of senior positions under her belt, Barrington-Stoute is now a ward manager at the acute assessment unit at Charing Cross Hospital, part of the Imperial College Healthcare NHS trust. She’s also back studying at Bucks New Uni – having completed her dissertation, she’s about to finish a master’s degree in advance nursing practice. And, she says, she has never felt more fulfilled.
“My daughter would not be on this earth if it wasn’t for the care and support that she had,” she says. “Those nurses touched my life and gave me a miracle. I wanted to do the same for someone else. Studying at Bucks New Uni gave me the chance to do that. The university has always been wonderfully supportive around my need to look after my child, who has a disability.”
She’s just one of the Bucks New Uni nursing graduates who are changing lives for the better, every day, in hospitals all over the UK. In an increasingly demanding and specialised healthcare landscape, Bucks New Uni’s BSc (Hons) Nursing degree is carefully designed, with input from a dedicated team of external healthcare professionals, to ensure that it aligns perfectly with what the NHS needs right now – and what it might need in the future.
One aspect of her degree that Barrington-Stoute found particularly useful was her placements: her first one was at Imperial College Healthcare NHS trust, where she later landed her first job and her current role. There is a popular – and incorrect – perception that nursing degrees are less about frontline work and more about theory. But in fact, they are all split evenly between the two.
At Bucks New Uni, students must undertake 2,300 hours of placements. And the university’s strong links with healthcare trusts across London and Bucks means that there’s a wide variety of placements available to meet student needs. “This gives them the option to work in whatever setting they choose when they qualify,” says Margaret Rioga, associate head of school at Bucks New Uni’s school of nursing and allied healthcare. “We talk to our students about where they see themselves, and try to tailor their final placements to where they want to work, so they can start that transition.”
The removal of the bursary for nursing training means that nursing students will now need to pay off student loans once they qualify, making it even more important that they go into work as soon as possible. “Our students are very employable,” says Rioga. “I’m currently working with 30 students who will be finishing in September, and all of them have two or three job offers.”
Bucks New Uni offers the chance to specialise in either adult, child or mental health for the three-year BSc, and in either adult health or mental health for the two-year postgraduate diploma. Emily Crellin benefited from this specialist approach. She already holds a BSc in Psychology from the Open University and graduated from the two-year postgraduate diploma (PGDip) in Mental Health Nursing in 2018.
“I was working in retail but I gradually became more and more interested in nursing,” she says. “I didn’t even know you could specialise in mental health nursing until I met a mental health nurse. And my interest just grew from there.”
Mental health nursing attracted her, she says, because it offers the chance to work one-on-one with patients and build a rapport with them. “I did eight placements and worked in a variety of settings but I was really interested in working in an eating disorder unit, which Bucks New Uni facilitated for me at the Vincent Square Eating Disorder Service in Kensington, run by the Central and North West London NHS trust.
“The staff were amazing and you really get that chance to get to know someone over what can be a long period of time, as opposed to some of my other placements where a patient might be in and out very quickly.” Like Barrington-Stoute, she found her placement invaluable for getting a job and is just about to start her new role – back at Vincent Square. And she’s excited at what the future might bring.
“It’s hard work but I honestly can’t think of anything more rewarding,” she says. “Before starting nursing, I had lots of different jobs, and I never got a sense of satisfaction from any of them. Now, I feel like I’m making a difference.”
To find out more about studying nursing at Bucks New Uni, visit the website or call 0330 123 2023
