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Advanced Clinical Practice (GP)
School of Allied Health Professions, Nursing and Midwifery,
Faculty of Health
Course description
This course gives you the knowledge and skills required to play an expanded role in providing care for your patients. It’s designed for registered nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, paramedics and related healthcare practitioners within general practice who want to work at an advanced level of clinical practice. The course can be taken as a standard degree programme or apprenticeship.
Throughout the programme, you’ll cover all four pillars of advanced practice: You will gain advanced skills in anatomy, history taking and clinical examination, develop your understanding of evidence-based practice and learn how to deal with complex clinical situations and improve patient services. You’ll also cover the training necessary to become an independent prescriber.
You’ll be taught by a multidisciplinary team of academics and practitioners, who are experienced in supporting mature and distance learners. You will combine your university studies with work-based learning under the supervision of a local mentor – usually a GP – who can support and assess your knowledge, skills and capabilities.
Applying
It can take up to six weeks for an offer to be made. Please do not contact us for a decision before this time has passed.
Before you complete your application, please ensure you have been interviewed and secured a trainee ACP post as this will ensure you have the correct funding and supervision in place.
After this, you will receive a link to a University of Sheffield online application form and be asked to . Your completed checklist and all required information should then be uploaded to the application form for your programme. Failure to do this will mean your application can not be considered.
HCPC registrants can also apply if they already hold the independent prescriber qualification.
Accreditation
This programme is accredited by the .
Health Education England’s Centre for Advancing Practice has been established to standardise post-registration education by accrediting advanced practice courses that achieve the standards outlined in the multi-professional Advanced Practice Framework.
Practitioners who have completed accredited education programmes will be eligible to be listed on the Centre’s Advanced Practice Directory.
Modules
CPD modules
If you are not ready to apply for the three-year MMedSci programme, most of the modules on this programme can be taken as a standalone CPD module. Find out more on our continuing professional development web pages.
- Clinical Episode Management in Primary Care
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This module explores and identifies specialist primary care knowledge to support the clinical diagnosis and management of common conditions managed on a regular basis in primary care. The student will consolidate their skills in history taking and clinical examination to enable clinical diagnosis and relevant management plans. The knowledge and skills relating to different assessment foci will be explored so that patient management and advanced clinical reasoning can be fostered alongside developing justification for differential diagnoses, investigations and treatments.
15 credits
This unit enables the practitioner to develop a portfolio of evidence of advanced practice competence in relation to common clinical management episodes. - Advanced Clinical Assessment
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Advanced clinical skill development is a key feature of the advanced clinical practitioner role and the completion of this module will provide advanced general practice clinical practitioner students with the relevant underpinning anatomy, physiology and pathophysiology knowledge to gain mastery in their role. The knowledge and expertise gained on this module will facilitate mastery and autonomy in comprehensive history taking, assessment, diagnosis and therapeutic management of their clients with a focus on the adult population. The knowledge and skills related to patient-centred diagnosis and management will foster advanced clinical reasoning alongside developing justification for differential diagnoses, investigations and treatments.
30 credits - Evidence Based Practice (Online)
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This unit is designed to enable the student to consider sources of knowledge that impact on the development of health and social care practices. The nature of evidence and the skills of searching, retrieval, appraisal, utilisation, dissemination and implementation of evidence will be conceded in the light of health and social care service efficacy. A variety of teaching and learning strategies will be offered to facilitate the development of the knowledge and skills required for evaluation of evidence in practice, culminating in the development of a defensible proposal to support practice/service enhancement.
15 credits
Core modules:
- Clinical Leadership
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Healthcare professionals strive to provide care that is continuously improving, high quality, safe and compassionate. Such care needs to be adaptive to local and national organisational strategies, learns from incidents and is aligned to patient opinions, behaviours and service demand. Effective leadership behaviours are central to high quality clinical care, and focused on a patient safety culture that can transcend professional and organisational boundaries to drive quality improvements.
15 credits
Within this module, we will critically explore and analyse the theories and evidence underpinning practice improvement, human factors, service redesign and transformational leadership, ensuring the student has the creative ability to propose and develop a practice-based report and use innovative approaches to disseminate their findings. - Managing Complexity in Primary Care
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This module explores and identifies specialist primary care knowledge of both children and adults to support the clinical diagnosis and management of complex clinical presentations in practice. The student will augment their advanced clinical skills of history taking, clinical examination and reasoning to further develop their diagnostic skills and autonomy when prescribing and managing complexity within their everyday clinical practice. This typically will require ongoing holistic person-centred care incorporating greater prevention and health promotion with particular attention to vulnerability.
15 credits
The knowledge and skills related to differential diagnosis and diagnostic uncertainty will be explored so that client management and clinical reasoning can advance.Â
By the end of the module the student will be able to review and synthesise data in complex clinical situations to demonstrate and communicate their advanced clinical practice capability and competency. - Independent & Supplementary Prescribing for Nurses and Midwives
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This module will enable qualified nurses and midwives to critically evaluate the principles underpinning nurse prescribing, including exploring the pharmacology of drugs and to examine the issues faced when prescribing in clinical practice as part of an interdisciplinary team. This will allow them to prescribe safely, appropriately, and cost effectively. Students are required to undertake supervised clinical practice under the mentorship of a designated prescribing practitioner. Successful completion of the module will in fulfil the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) criteria to allow annotation in the professional register as an independent/supplementary prescriber.
30 credits
Applicants must be a registered nurse (level 1), a registered midwife or a SCPHN (registered with the NMC) before being considered as eligible to apply for entry onto an NMC approved prescribing programme
Applicants for V300 supplementary/independent prescribing programmes must have been registered with the NMC for a minimum of one year prior to application for entry onto the programme (change to NMC requirements 2018)
Applicants will also need to evidence that they have the necessary skills in clinical and health assessment, diagnostics, care management and the planning and evaluation of care
For level 7 applications It is expected that participants have 120 credits at level 6 (degree) or demonstrate the ability to study at this level.
All Registrants must have an up-to date Disclosure and Barring Service check i.e. within last three years, before they commence educational preparation to prescribe as a Nurse Independent Prescriber. This includes applicants who are self-employed or work in non NHS settings. - Effective advanced practice for independent prescribers
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This unit is designed for those already with a prescribing qualification at undergraduate level who are training for advanced practice roles, which bring greater demands for autonomy and critical thinking. It aims to develop the knowledge and skills to fully integrate their prescribing practice into their new advanced role. The unit builds on the knowledge and skills already gained through completion of a previous course in independent prescribing and uses principles of reflective practice and work based learning to further develop effectiveness in relation to advanced practice.
30 credits
- Critical review of clinical practice
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Senior health and social care professionals need to be able to translate and apply learning from academic programmes in order to make a meaningful contribution to practice. The unit will enable students to complete a substantial piece of work that has the potential to stimulate development or innovation in their practice. It draws together learning from the programme and engages the academic skills of critical appraisal with development of a proposal of application to practice. Students identify a relevant issue and subject this to systematic analysis to produce an evidence based report which addresses improvement objectives through deliverable recommendations.
60 credits
The content of our courses is reviewed annually to make sure it's up-to-date and relevant. Individual modules are occasionally updated or withdrawn. This is in response to discoveries through our world-leading research; funding changes; professional accreditation requirements; student or employer feedback; outcomes of reviews; and variations in staff or student numbers. In the event of any change we'll consult and inform students in good time and take reasonable steps to minimise disruption.
Open days
An open day gives you the best opportunity to hear first-hand from our current students and staff about our courses.
Duration
3 years, part-time
Teaching
You will learn through lectures, skills workshops, simulations, seminars, case-based discussions, supervised clinical practice, tripartite reviews and reflection.
Assessment
You will be assessed through case presentations, reports, examinations including objective structured clinical exams (OSCEs), presentations, essays and a specialist electronic portfolio.
Your career
Graduates from this course can work as advanced clinical practitioners (ACPs), specialising in primary care.
ACPs are experienced and knowledgeable healthcare professionals who have expanded their scope of practice to better meet the needs of the patients in their care. They’re an integral part of the NHS Long-Term plan, and following graduation you’ll have plenty of opportunities to progress your career as a highly-skilled, autonomous healthcare leader.
Past students have gone on to secure senior roles within health settings such as the NHS, The Resuscitation Council and the Department of Health. These roles include:
- Nurse consultant
- Advanced paramedic
- Research nurse
- Matron
- Patient transport lead
Other students have gone on to find success in teaching roles in UK universities.
(Health Education England)
Entry requirements
Minimum 2:2 undergraduate honours degree in a health discipline (e.g. nursing, midwifery, pharmacy, physiotherapy, paramedic science).
Minimum of a grade 4/C in GCSE English Language and Maths or equivalent (please upload evidence of this to your application).
English language requirements
IELTS 7 (with 6.5 in writing and 7 in each other component).
Other requirements
You must be a healthcare professional registered with an appropriate professional body like the NMC or HPC. You should upload evidence of this to your application.
You must have been working in the pathway-specific area for a minimum of three years. You must hold a current relevant employment contract in the pathway-specific setting for the duration of the programme for a minimum of 30 hours per week.
If you have any questions about entry requirements, please contact the school/department.
Fees and funding
Alumni discount
Save up to £2,500 on your course fees
Are you a Sheffield graduate? You could save up to £2,500 on your postgraduate taught course fees, subject to eligibility.
Apply
To apply for this course, you must have been interviewed for and secured a trainee advanced clinical practitioner post. After this, you will receive a link to a University of Sheffield online application form and further instructions to complete your application.
Any supervisors and research areas listed are indicative and may change before the start of the course.
Recognition of professional qualifications: from 1 January 2021, in order to have any UK professional qualifications recognised for work in an EU country across a number of regulated and other professions you need to apply to the host country for recognition. Read and the .