Personalise your learning with our Nursing Top-Up degree, combining theory and practice in your clinical specialty. Gain the skills and confidence to excel in your OSCE assessments and advance your nursing career.
Register your interestThis Top-Up degree helps nursing students, particularly overseas nurses, prepare for their NMC registration OSCE and develop careers as registered nurses in the UK.
It focuses on building essential skills for all nursing areas, allowing you to choose a specialty like adult, child, mental health, or learning disability nursing. The course combines theory and practice, with multi-specialty discussions involving staff and peers.
Based on standards such as the NMC (2018) and FHEQ, the programme stays up to date with healthcare trends, with future updates from bodies like the NMC and QAA ensuring the curriculum remains relevant.
Find out more about this course in the programme specification.
*This programme is not approved by the NMC and does not lead to NMC registration. If you are an international student who wants to work as a nurse within the UK, you will need to register separately with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). This programme will help to prepare you for the NMC registration by providing you with the academic and clinical skills the NMC are looking for and will test in their Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). Once registered, you will be able to work as a nurse in the UK.
This course can be studied full-time over one year.
We use various methods of teaching including lectures, seminars, workshops, tutorials, independent learning and group work.
You’ll be learning modules in a simulation facility. This includes an immersive simulation suite which also includes mock wards, and a mock house for community simulations. There are also several different simulation mannequins that are available for teaching use.
IELTS short course
As part of our commitment to supporting our students, we offer a free two-week IELTS preparation short course exclusively for nursing students after completion of their programme. This 12-hour course is designed to help you achieve the required IELTS score of 7.0, a crucial step for NMC registration in the UK. The course covers key areas including speaking, listening, reading, writing, and important aspects of language such as phonology, morphology, and syntax. You'll also participate in a mock IELTS exam, giving you the preparation needed to succeed.
We don’t currently display entry requirements for United States. Please contact the Student Admin team on studentadmin@sunderland.ac.uk or 0191 515 3154.
You must be a qualified nurse, registered with your home country regulatory body and have current experience.
To study this course, you'll need:
If English is not your first language, you must meet the minimum English language requirements to join the course:
We accept a range of English language tests and qualifications for students from all over the world. View the full list here.
APL is the term used when you get credit towards your course for something you learned in the past. It means you might not need to study all the course including a module or several modules.
This can come from:
If you think you could get APL, contact our Admissions team.
The annual fee for this course is:
For the 2024/25 academic year, even though you are classified as an International Student, EU nationals receive a £5,750 scholarship, which reduces the fees from £16,000 to £10,250. The discounted fee will be reflected in your offer letter.
The annual, full-time fee for this course is:
*Undergraduate fees are set according to rules from Government in line with forecast inflation. The fee for your first year of study for 2025/26 will be £9,535. You will pay tuition fees for every year of study. Fees may increase every year based on the Retail Price Index.
For more information on fees and funding, visit our Scholarships pages.
Please note: fees may change in the next academic year.
Find out more about paying tuition fees, methods of payment, or read about the scholarships and discounts that might be available to you.
This information was correct at the time of publication.
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