Accommodation for students with NHS placements

Your learning will predominantly be based at our Lansdowne Campus (though Talbot campus is also utilised), or our Yeovil Campus for some of our Adult Nursing students, or Portsmouth campus for some of our Midwifery students.

However, clinical placements will be organised by locality in a variety of places within Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire in order to provide the necessary breadth of experience.

Please note - placement localities are allocated at the time of your offer for your course. You will not be able to change your main placement locality once you start. You will need to consider the realities of placements within the geographical area you have been given and be realistic as to whether this will be manageable and suitable for you – whilst being flexible may in some circumstances increase your chances of success, being unrealistic will lead to challenges.

Although you will be allocated a placement locality, to ensure that you get to experience a range of placement experiences needed for successful course completion, you may be expected to change location for a portion of your placement time.

Our trust locations

Our geographical footprint for placement is vast – covering four counties in the South; Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire and Hampshire. This ensures we are able to provide you with a wealth of clinical experience across a variety of areas of the healthcare service, including opportunities to experience placements in both urban and rural communities.

As a result, this will involve travel, in some cases this can be more than 40miles away from Bournemouth, and some travel will be outside normal working hours due to the nature of shift work. You must ensure that you have means to travel to your placement location at unsociable hours and this may require you to use short-term accommodation options in order to participate in your placement. To help you with this, the NHS learning support fund can support you with placement travel expenses and dual accommodation costs if required.

Links to details of the NHS accommodation locations are available on this page.

You will find out your placement locality in your offer letter. In some circumstances (e.g. Clearing), you may expect to receive information about your placement locality within a week of receiving your offer. Once you have this information, you can contact suitable hospital accommodation for availability and application.

Please contact the accommodation office of the hospital accommodation directly if you wish to book. Contact details can be found on each accommodation option’s page.

Please note, if you choose to live in BU accommodation, we are unable to release you from your contract should you book alternative accommodation during your placements. However you may be able to claim back travel expenses and dual accommodation costs that may be incurred during your placements from the NHS. 

*Please note that the spaces at hospital accommodation are very limited and there is no guarantee from BU as booking has to be made directly to the hospital accommodation. 

When you need to travel to your placement location from your student accommodation in Bournemouth / Poole, you may be eligible for funding from the NHS Learning Support Fund. You can view the policies on the NHS bursaries website. 

University accommodation options do not have on-site parking. This is why we encourage you to really consider how you will get to and from your hospital placement location while working shift patterns where you may start or finish shifts at varying times of day or night.

The University campus locations do not have dedicated student parking for when you attend timetabled teaching for your course. However the Lansdowne campus has good transport links and timetabled teaching is only during daytime working hours, unlike placement work.

Our Unilet properties, depending on the site location, may have limited parking space. Please contact our accommodation team for further information.

Paramedic Science students need to consider accommodation with parking, as you may need a car for your placement. 

You may want to consider our Unilet properties, which offer limited parking space. Alternatively, there is also private rentals option through BU Lettings. Please contact our accommodation team for further information.

ResLifeBU is a programme designed to help you enjoy your time in student accommodation to the fullest. It’s included in all of the accommodation managed by or in partnership with BU.

Our ResLifeBU Team supports you across three core areas:

• Social, covering a wide range of inclusive activities and events
• Wellbeing, comprising your welfare, health, safety and overall comfort and security
• Skills – from cooking masterclasses to tips on managing your budget

The team comprises of our ResLife Assistants (RAs) who are current BU students and live on site with an understanding of what it’s like to move to a new home when you start at uni. Our Welfare Coordinator is a current member of BU staff and is available for any wellbeing issues you might have whilst in residence.

£1 of your weekly rent goes towards the funding of the programme – but if you make the most of it, you’ll find it’s worth so much more than that.