Nicki Walsh

Nicki has over 10 years’ experience of teaching and learning within Higher Education (at both undergraduate and post graduate levels) and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Institute. Her current post as Programme Lead for Health and Social Care sees her bring considerable healthcare experience and Knowledge to the Health and Social Care programmes. Nicki’s most recent academic role at the University of Lincoln (commencing in June 2013 following transfer under a TUPE agreement from the University of Nottingham) saw her as the Programme Lead for a BSc (Hons) in Nursing (Adult and Mental Health) for around 750 students. This role was primarily to ensure quality alignment with professional regulatory requirements (the Nursing and Midwifery Council NMC), as well as the contractual expectations of Health Education England. Day to day programme management, meant review of teaching quality as well as ensuring student satisfaction and progression, all of which Nicki brings to the role at BGU. Nicki’s former role at the University of Nottingham saw her as the year two co-ordinator for the BSc (Hons) / Dip in Nursing. Which required alignment of programme delivery across five centres (Mansfield, Nottingham, Derby, Lincoln and Boston/Grantham) as well as across all four fields of Nursing (Adult, Child, Learning Disability and Mental Health). Nicki’s areas of teaching and learning reflect both her clinical and research experience within fields of diabetes, primary and community healthcare, non-medical prescribing, long-term condition management and evidence based practice, which have also seen her publish and present at conferences nationally and internationally.

Related Courses

Nicki has been a Registered Nurse (Adult) since 1994 with a varied clinical career starting in Orthopaedics and Trauma then moving to District Nursing in 1999, where she attained her Specialist Practitioner Qualification (SPQ). In 2003, she become a Diabetes Nurse Specialist, and set up the original community nurse-led service in South Lincolnshire. Nicki was one of the first non-medical prescribers in the county and continued to teach this to a variety of clinicians including nurses and pharmacists in her former role at Lincoln.

Nicki’s previous research has looked at effective discharge within orthopaedics settings, moving to looking at the utility of evidence in the community clinical practice setting for her MSc. Her current research is looking at the continuous professional development (CPD) experiences and expectations of nurses working in General Practice, using diabetes as lens. This work follows on from her former work with a National Consultation Group as part of Diabetes UK, who were looking at the improvement and maintenance of healthcare professionals’ education and competence around diabetes care and management. She has published two position statements backed by Diabetes UK based on her work with this national group. Other recent project work has included heading up the Higher Education element of a nationally driven project by Health Education England to bring training hubs to General Practice in Lincolnshire. The aim of this project was to ultimately promoting recruitment and retention within General Practice as well as the advancement of quality educational provision for all learners within General Practice. This work has been presented nationally and published. Nicki has been part of National consultations on a range of health related topics for the Queen’s Nursing Institute (QNI). Examples have been around the utility of Specialist Qualifications for Community Nursing Staff, effective discharge and transition services for young people. Since joining BGU Nicki has set up a number of stakeholder networks which focus on Graduate career trajectories for students within H&S, as well as enhancement of student placement experience. Recently Nicki has been given the opportunity to work as International Associate for BGU, which will see her looking to embed internationalisation across BGU curricula and to lead on a project supported by other academic at BGU with Masaryk University looking at internationalisation of the profile of future teachers and teaching practice.

Walsh, N and Mason, R., (2018) “ Hitting the Ground Running": An Evaluation of Management Placements for Student Nurses with UK General Practice. Primary Health Care. RCNi. IN PRESS

Walsh, N., (2017) Using community education provider networks to develop general practice nursing. Primary Health Care. Vol.27, No.4, pp26-29

Simmons, D, Deakin^,T., Walsh^,N., Turner^,B., Lawrence^,S., Priest^,L., George^,S., Vanterpool^,G., McArdle^,J., Rylance^,A., Terry^,G., Diabetic Medicine (2015) Vol 32, No.5 pp576-84 Diabetes UK Position Statement Competency frameworks in diabetes; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dme.12702

Walsh, N., George, S., Priest, L., Deakin, T., Karet, B., Vanterpool, G. and Simmons, D., (2011) The current status of Diabetes Professional Educational Standards and Competencies in the UK – A Position Statement from the Diabetes UK HCP Education Competency Framework Task and Finish Group. Diabetic Medicine. Vol. 28, No.12, pp 1501-1507, DOI: 10.1111/j.1464-5491.2011.0341

Rush, B., Walsh, N.J., Guy, C.J., and Wharrad, H.J., (2011) A clinical practice teaching and learning observatory: The use of videoconferencing to link theory to practice in nurse education. Nurse Education in Practice. Vol.11, No.1. pp26-30

Walsh, N.J., Collins, J., Rush, B., and Wharrad, H., (2010) Using Technology to enhance Pre-registration nurse education in diabetes. Journal Diabetes Nursing, Vol. 14, No.1, pp139-142

Walsh, N.J. (2010) Dissemination of Evidence into Practice: Examination of the barriers to its use in practice settings. Journal of Primary HealthCare. Vol.20, No.3, pp 26-30

Walsh, N.J., Rush, B. & Collins, J. (2009) Diabetes in undergraduate nurse education: a novel approach. Diabetic Medicine. Vol. 26. Supp. 1, pp182-183.

Walsh, N., (2008) Community Nursing: An “Essential” Pre-Registration Nursing Experience – Primary Health Care. Vol 18. No 6, pp18-19