Changing a Future Nurse undergraduate nursing programme to include more mental health content: initial evaluation.

Abstract

The 2018 Nursing and Midwifery Council's 'Future Nurse' standards introduced increased genericism to UK nursing education, prompting criticism from specialist fields concerned about diluted field-specific knowledge. This article reports on a curriculum innovation at one UK university that addressed local implementation challenges through targeted module development to include an increased number of field-specific modules alongside core content. Among others, two new modules were introduced, one on mental health for adult nursing students, and one on children and young people's mental health for both mental health and children's nursing students. Qualitative feedback revealed initial student hesitation about mental health content among adult nursing students, which improved by module completion. The children's mental health module demonstrated better alignment with student expectations. Despite implementation challenges, including appropriate content depth and delivery timing, both modules showed evidence of success. This curriculum innovation demonstrates a practical response to balancing generic competencies with field-specific expertise requirements.