Edinburgh Napier University’s School of Health and Social Care celebrates 30th anniversary
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A university school responsible for training generations of health and social care professionals is celebrating three decades of success.
Edinburgh Napier University’s School of Health and Social Care was founded in 1996 when the Scottish Border College of Nursing joined forces with the Lothian College of Health Studies.
These days, it’s at the cutting edge of teaching for the 3,400 students there, thanks to the 160 staff who use their vast experience and knowledge of health and social care, and their innovation and excellence in delivering high-quality education for nurses, midwives and allied health professionals at all stages of their career – from just getting started to advanced practice and doctoral level. ENU is proud to offer students the opportunity to safely practice their skills in a state of the art Simulation and Clinical Skills Centre: one of the UK’s most advanced simulation centres.
The staff are also leading world-class research as well as inspiring the future workforce with teaching that has seen ENU rated the top university for student satisfaction in the city every year since 2020.
As the only university in Scotland to offer pre-registration training in all four nursing specialisms – adult, children and young people, mental health and learning disabilities – as well as midwifery, the School has helped tens of thousands of healthcare professionals find the right role for them.
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Teaching and research that makes a real difference
Professor Susan Dawkes has been Dean of the School for a year; before a short stint elsewhere, she taught at ENU for 16 years in a variety of roles, latterly Head of Learning and Teaching and Professor of Cardiovascular Health.
Reflecting on the past three decades through her experience as a nurse, she noted the move from focusing on hospital treatment to providing more community-based care, and the shift in emphasis from treatment to prevention as changing the landscape of the many healthcare professions.
“When I started, not every nurse had to have a degree as they do now, and the notion of coming in through a different route didn’t exist then either,” she says. “Nursing and midwifery have become the professions that they deserve to be – with studies showing that hospital patients have better outcomes when their nurses have degree qualifications[1].”
The profile of students at ENU has also shifted in the past 30 years, with more than half of undergraduate applicants classed as mature students, and many more male applicants for nursing courses than there were in 1996. Pre-registration master’s routes into adult and mental health nursing have also allowed mature applicants to consider switching careers and retraining. The School also works very closely with the colleges across Scotland to offer access routes into nursing and midwifery programmes, in a commitment to widening access.
Susan says it is a privilege to lead the School during its anniversary and acknowledged the hard work of staff to ensure programmes are redesigned to be innovative and flexible to continue to attract students.
“It is a brilliant team – we do world-class research in a number of areas and the teaching and learning is absolutely amazing,” she enthuses. “Our teaching staff are all from healthcare backgrounds, so they bring their own experience to the classrooms and make it come alive for our students by sharing memorable examples from the care they have given themselves.”
While ENU may be in the heart of Edinburgh with a location that helps students find work experience in city and rural healthcare settings, it’s also helping international students to gain a foothold in the healthcare sector with its global training. The School’s part-time programme for nurses in Singapore allows them to expand their knowledge and gain a critical approach to care provision, while work with partners in the Caribbean also allows those with qualifications gained overseas to convert to accreditation recognised in the UK.
The School is home to the Centre for Cardiovascular Health, working to combat cardiovascular disease, and the Centre for Mental Health Practice Policy and Law Research, which helps everyone to enjoy the highest attainable standard of mental health.
Additionally its multi-disciplinary research groups look at a variety of topics from the adoption of technology in clinical settings to studying public health to influence the policies that shape our lives.
As Susan explains, this work aims to make a positive, real-world impact on health and social care practice here in Edinburgh and in Scotland as well as around the world. Among the heavy hitters undertaking research at the School are Professor Thanos Karatzias, a world-leading expert in complex posttraumatic stress disorder (CPTSD), and Lis Neubeck, Head of the Centre for Cardiovascular Health, whose work highlighted the need that led to the creation of the newly launched SCAD (Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection) clinic at Forth Valley Royal Hospital.
But it’s also the quality of teaching, and the resulting levels of student satisfaction, that sets the School - and ENU – apart from others.
We say we are the home of difference makers, and that really rings true at my school,” she adds. “The team do a really good job and that is what I am most proud of.
Understanding where demand for health and care services is changing
Scott Taylor, co-chair of Scottish Learning Disability Nurse Leads and Nurse Consultant, studied at what was the school of nursing in the early 1990s and now helps to shape the School’s curriculum. As people with learning disabilities continue to experience disastrous health inequalities, he says this growing discipline can help to give a voice to those most in need.
We stand shoulder to shoulder: we are the smallest profession within the nursing family working with the smallest group of people within healthcare," explains Scott. "People with learning disabilities are often not recognised and don't have a voice within society.
NHS Lothian, where he is based, has fewer than 150 learning disability nurses but there is a move towards including them more in general medicine settings. The recently published LeDeR review[2] found people with learning disabilities continue to die, on average, 19.5 years younger than the general population and remain nearly twice as likely to die from avoidable causes. Better support from the outset could mean reasonable adjustments are made that could bring more accurate and faster diagnoses and better outcomes for these people.
"We do feel like we have a strong, articulate and loud a loud voice to represent our profession but also to represent those with the smallest voice."
When he first began his career, training was closer to an apprenticeship; it still follows a model of alternating classroom learning with placements but "the educational element is much more robust", he says, echoing Susan's views about the value of a degree education for nurses.
And it's a vocation that has brought him a huge amount of satisfaction, as well as bringing many varied opportunities.
"It does change your life, becoming a nurse," adds Scott. "You become so socially aware and that is really enriching: you are always thinking about someone's rights and how they are represented, and how to enable them to do the best they can and get the best outcomes.
Learning disability nursing brings so many transferrable skills – I've worked in many different settings across health and social care, university and research, and government and policy. You don't just qualify and that's it... if you want them, there are huge opportunities out there.
Taking healthcare services into the 21st century
Maggie Reid graduated from the School's midwifery programme in 2014 and is now clinical lead for the transformation and deployment of digital solutions at healthcare software provider System C. She's passionate about the need to bring NHS systems into the modern age so that every stage of a woman's healthcare journey through maternity services is properly documented and supported.
With the introduction of BadgerNet, a completely paperless system designed for early pregnancy, gynaecology and maternity care, the same set of notes are available digitally whether you visit the GP, the hospital or the midwife.
Not only does it reduce duplication and paperwork load for midwives, it also makes more real-time data available to help inform future policy and ways of working.
"Healthcare is a challenging place and we need to be looking at new ways to evolve it and bring that forward,” she says.
If I could have one goal, it would be to work with the people making the policies and strategic leaders in hospitals to use the data that we have to really drive forward improvements in care. Let's flip from being retrospective to being proactive because we have this data: we don't have to wait a long time before we start analysing it
“Sadly, I think within healthcare, there's still quite a distrust between suppliers and data and commercials, and the NHS. We need more collaboration and more interoperability. The only reason I'm here is to make the pregnancy journey for that woman and her family as safe as it possibly can be. And if we all focused on that, and we all came collaboratively together, I think we could really make a huge difference in maternity services.”
Maggie studied twice at ENU – she completed a Business Studies degree after leaving school, then returned as a mature student to train as a midwife.
"Together, these two degrees have given me a unique perspective," she says. "The business studies part equipped me with strategic and organisation leadership skills, whereas midwifery grounded me in healthcare, social care, clinical practice, and the reality of what the clinical frontline looks like.
"My role today at System C has really given me a great opportunity to blend both of those two careers together, where I now lead on frontline digitalisation transformation in healthcare, not only in the UK, but also internationally."
During her time at ENU, she was the first student to ever go on placement to Canada and gained the university's medal for outstanding achievement in midwifery. "Even today that is probably one of my proudest moments because it wasn't easy as a mature student. But the support and guidance I got through my elective and the course overall helped me to see how all the bits of the jigsaw came together and really influenced what midwifery has meant to me."
Like Scott, she's keen that future students know the breadth of options available to them. "When you sit as a student studying midwifery, you don't always see the bigger picture. Midwifery is a really varied career and you can do a lot with it: when I look back, I would never have thought that I would have been able to use my skills to get to where I am today."
Interested in a career in nursing or midwifery? Come and visit our Open Day on 1 November 2025.