Course overview

Advanced clinical practitioners are leaders in their specific field of practice. Working with other members of the multi-disciplinary team they manage episodes of clinical care. Our tailored course units have been developed to help you progress your career in this field.

You will study:

• advanced paediatric anatomy and physiology;
• advanced paediatric examination and assessment;
• reflective teaching and learning;
• independent prescribing;
• research design.

You will also complete a dissertation in an area associated to your career aims and job role.

Course description

This course is aimed at those working in advanced clinical practice roles.

It offers healthcare practitioners from a range of backgrounds the opportunity to advance their practice through a tailored selection of units, each designed to give you the in-depth knowledge and skills required to autonomously manage complexities in individual patient care, as well as lead and support the transformation of healthcare services through research informed practice and leadership.

The course will equip you with:

advanced clinical skills to apply to your specific area of practice promoting safe, effective, accessible and high quality patient care;
the ability to apply theories of leadership and management to your role and area of advanced practice.

We offer a number of pathways including:

postgraduate certificate;
postgraduate diploma;
MSc.

Aims

The course aims to give you an advanced level of integrated clinical knowledge and develop cutting-edge skills to help you excel as an advanced practitioner and clinical leader in your field. The highly structured academic programme will run in parallel with a work-based programme of learning.

The aims of the course are to:

• provide a flexible, multi-professional programme of clinically relevant postgraduate study to develop your skills as an advanced clinical practitioner in paediatric settings
• advance your clinical practice and service delivery through enhancement of critical thinking and synthesis of a range of sources of evidence relevant to clinical practice, to inform decision making at an individual, team and/or organisational level;
• enable you to work individually and collaboratively to meet the learning and development needs of practitioners across a range of professions;
• ensure you can meet the changing needs of children and young people, and the people who care for them, by critically evaluating current practice.

Teaching and learning

The course aims to give you an advanced level of integrated clinical knowledge and develop cutting-edge skills to help you excel as advanced practitioners and clinical leaders in your respective field. To achieve this, the highly structured academic programme will run in parallel with a work-based programme of learning. University based teaching and learning methods will include interactive workshops, seminars, action learning sets, group and individual tutorials, online activities, simulation and presentations). All approaches are structured to facilitate engagement in your own learning and that of your peers.

Career opportunities

Most students complete the course part-time while working in their advanced practice roles. Advanced clinical practitioners have made a positive impact on emergency and urgent care, surgical care, sub-acute wards, primary care, and forensic mental health settings to name a few examples. It is widely accepted that these practitioners will play an increasingly important role within the NHS, particularly given the national supply and skills shortages in the medical and non-medical workforce.