Nursing Associate Apprenticeship

Course overview

Nursing Associates provide care for people of all ages and from different backgrounds, cultures and beliefs. Patients may have mental, physical, cognitive and behavioural care needs and qualified nursing associates will be providing care in a range of settings including in people's homes, in the community, hospital or in any health care setting. Due to the broad nature of the role, nursing associates will be adept at working in the context of continual change, challenging environments, different models of care delivery, shifting demographics, innovation and rapidly evolving technologies.

With an increasing integration of health and social care services, nursing associates will be required to negotiate boundaries and play an important role in multidisciplinary teams. The apprenticeship will provide trainees with the knowledge and skills to confidently provide evidence based, direct nursing care.

Nursing associates contribute to the promotion of health, health protection and the prevention of ill health. They do this by empowering people and communities to exercise choice, take control of their own health decisions and behaviours, and by supporting people to manage their own care where possible. In their daily work, an employee in this occupation interacts with a variety of service users, families and carers, and with an extensive range of health and care professionals and other agencies including social services, police, probation, prisons, housing, education, language interpreters and third sector agencies. They might be working in a health, social care or public health provider and may work various shift patterns which enable care to be provided 24 hours per day, seven days per week, 365 days of the year. This is a new role and it is expected that nursing associates will become a key part of the team to meet the integrated health and care needs of patients and service users.

A career in health and social care requires individuals to be resilient, have a high level of empathy and be able to manage their own personal health and well-being.