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Step 7 – Decide on a Speciality

What particular area of nursing interests you?

There are four basic branches of nursing on the nursing pre-registration course:

• Adult nursing
• Children nursing
• Learning disability nursing
• Mental health nursing

You need to choose which course to take, so how do you decide?

Read these summaries of the main four branches and also take a look at the different specialities you can take after registration in our Nursing Specialities section.

This will help give you some idea of what the different branches can lead to. It should be possible to change which branch you study if you decide you are really interested in a different branch, but you will need to do this as soon as possible.

Adult Nursing

Adult nurses have a varied workload looking after all adults ranging from young adolescent adults to the elderly in hospital wards, clinics or in the community. They need to be able to interact with a variety of different medical professionals and to communicate well with patients and their families. They have to prioritise their activities and treat patients with a wide range of illnesses. This role requires the nurse to constantly switch between caring, managing, teaching and counselling in order to improve the quality of their patient’s lives. Adult nursing suits people who enjoy being part of a busy multidisciplinary team. It is one of the basic pre-registration branches.

Children’s Nursing

Children’s nursing can be complicated by a restricted ability to be able to communicate with the child to establish exactly what is wrong. Young babies can’t speak and older children may not be able to describe what levels of pain they are experiencing. A children’s nurse will often have to work with information provided by parents, while also comforting both the parents and the child through emotional situations. This role involves working in a variety of different situations from babies born with complications to injured teenagers and can include child protection issues. The work is becoming more community-based so it may involve home visits as well as work in hospitals and day care centres.

Learning Disabilities Nursing

Many people with learning disabilities can also suffer from physical and mental health conditions. This can be exacerbated if their learning disabilities cause them to be socially excluded, for example not being able to find a suitable job. Learning disability nurses provide specialist healthcare to improve or maintain their patient’s physical or mental health. This can involve working in family settings, adult education, education for young people or community and residential settings. You can expect to work with teachers, psychologists, social workers, GP’s, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and healthcare assistants.

Mental Health Nursing

As many as one in three people has a mental health problem at some point in their life and this is one of the most intricate and challenging areas of nursing. It involves working with a range of other professions such as GPs, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and occupational therapists to treat a variety of conditions, including personality and psychological disorders as well as neuroses and psychoses. This role requires the nurse to form a therapeutic relationship with mentally ill patients, often in the community rather than in hospitals. This can involve visiting the patients and their families in their homes or residential centres as well as in specialist clinics or prisons.

Please refer to the Nursing Career Specialities article for more detailed information on each specialty.

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