Emotional celebration for first nursing degree cohort who started at height of pandemic

There were emotional moments a-plenty for both students and teaching staff at a special celebration for University College Birmingham’s very first nursing cohort – who started their course right at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Twenty-two students, from young mothers to mature students inspired to change course because of the devastation of the global outbreak, intrepidly took the plunge and enrolled on the University’s new Nursing (Adult) BSc (Hons) in September 2020, knowing they would soon be completing placements on Covid wards.

The class of 2020 were also joining a new degree course that had been years in the planning but was a brand new area for the University.

Approved by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), one of the course's selling points was the amount of support available to nurture academic and professional development through a robust tutorial system and working in smaller groups.

The degree was built layer by intricate layer by the University’s Director of Nurse Education, Professor Kathryn Riley, and Deputy Head of the Department of Nursing, Sarah Darling. Crucially, they had key input from clinical practitioners and strategic leads at NHS Trusts, as well as service users and existing students – all designed to create a more progressive, modern day nursing profession and healthcare landscape.

Students would also get to learn their clinical skills to become Registered Nurses in new health simulation facilities with a replica hospital ward. Here they would gain vital experience of the range of settings they would encounter in real life, with many sessions involving virtual reality. 

Three years on, this incredibly close cohort have experienced caring for Covid patients in diverse environments including A&E, GP services, prison placements and mental health settings.

Now they are about to graduate – calling for a special celebration at the University’s Restaurant at Birmingham College of Food in Summer Row.

At the celebration, Professor Kathryn Riley, who worked clinically for 16 years at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham before moving into education in 2002, said: “We built this course from scratch and when we started, we were right in the middle of Covid, so never had the opportunity for the proper launch everyone deserved. And you, our first students, started in very uncertain times.

“As all of you go off on your own journeys as Registered Nurses in your own right, we would like to wish you every success. I do feel you are such a close-knit group and you will have friends for life. We are so very proud of you.”

Helen Eldridge, Senior Lecturer for Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Nursing at the University – who was also there at the beginning of the course – said: “I would just like to say how immensely proud I am on many levels.

“Proud of the students for what they have accomplished, they have all developed into amazing professionals. And proud of Kathy and Sarah for putting together such a brilliant programme and the team for delivering it across the last three years. It is a fantastic sense of achievement for all.”