Nursing is a profession that offers multiple career pathways, and is a career move you can consider at any stage in your life. To qualify as a nurse, you will need to study to degree level, but your journey can start much sooner at Cambridge Regional College.
If you are a school leaver, a Study programme or Apprenticeship studies would be a great place to start. However, if you are an adult looking to change career or get back into work, an Access course would be an ideal first step.
We offer study programmes in Childcare and Early Years and Health and Social Care (H &SC). If you know you want to be a nurse working with children the former would be a good choice, but if you are still exploring your options, we recommend the latter. Both courses are delivered at Level 3 and will be classroom based with work experience opportunities throughout the 2-year course.
If you would like to learn while working, we offer apprenticeships in Early Years and Health and Social Care (usually over 18 years for H&SC) meaning you will spend majority of your time learning on the job with a day in college for theory studies. Apprenticeships generally take between 18 months to 2 years to complete.
For adult learners returning to education, we offer a course called Access to Health Professions. This course, between September and the end of June, is designed to prepare you for higher level studies with a particular focus on developing the academic research and writing skills needed for a degree. The Access course is a well-established programme, with a high success rate in supporting students to secure offers from their respective universities in Midwifery, Adult Nursing, Mental Health Nursing, Paediatric Nursing, Paramedic Science, and other allied health professions.
All three pathways will provide you with the required qualifications to progress to Higher Education; for the study programmes, you will also be supported to achieve GCSE English and maths or equivalent if required, and you can either choose to study for a degree at university or undertake a degree apprenticeship.
Cambridge Regional College has a long-standing partnership with Cambridge University Hospitals and this professional relationship means that we can signpost our learners to opportunities within CUH Hospitals, whether that be after your studies or in gaining work experience placements during your studies. This is a great advantage for anyone looking to pursue a dream career as a nurse or health professional.
CUH come into college as inspirational guest speakers to give our learners information and advice about health careers and routes into nursing, they also guarantee interviews for our L3 Early Years and Health and Social Care achievers applying for Adult and Paediatric Nursing Apprenticeships. The award-winning Nursing Apprenticeship Pathway lets you study with Anglia Ruskin University while employed at Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) as a Healthcare Support Worker.
Once you qualify as a nurse, options for specialising open up and you can choose from a wide range of specialist areas in which to develop your career. Some examples are Mental Health, Diabetes, Cardiology, Oncology and Urology.