Course summary

This Adult Critical Care Nursing programme will prepare you for a role as a critical care nurse, ensuring you are educated to the highest level, to guarantee quality care for critically ill patients. This one-year, part-time postgraduate certificate (PGCert) is commissioned by HEIW, and delivered in collaboration with partner health boards, Swansea Bay University Health Board and Hywel Dda University Health Board. The course has been supported by national critical care organisations including the British Association of Critical Care Nurses and the All Wales Critical Care Nursing Committee. By the end of this programme, you will be able to demonstrate skilled performance and provide enhanced theoretical knowledge as a registered critical care nurse. Upon completion of the course, you will hold a nationally recognised postgraduate certificate in critical care nursing as stipulated by the Guideline of Provision for Intensive Care Services (GPICs). You will be taught at the School of Health and Social Care, based on Singleton Park campus at the edge of the beautiful Gower Peninsula and just a stone’s throw from the nearest hospital. Our academic staff are qualified nurses, doctors, and allied health professionals, many of whom are also practising clinicians, providing an exceptional combination of theoretical rigour, professional insight, and practical expertise. We have an outstanding reputation for Nursing at Swansea University and are ranked Top 200 in the World for Nursing (QS World University Rankings by Subject 2025). We have very strong links with Welsh health boards whose staff have the requisite up to date clinical knowledge to sign off competencies that you will achieve in critical care nursing roles. You will benefit from simulation learning during your adult critical care nursing programme, in combination with theoretical and practice-based learning. You will need to be employed as a critical care or CITU nurse and have completed the step one competencies. You will also need to gain employer consent before applying to the faculty.