Advanced Clinical Practice

This core module is designed to give you a comprehensive foundation in clinical pedagogy, practice education and approaches to continuing professional development. It will support your development as an advanced clinical practitioner.

It draws on contemporary research, opinion, and wider pedagogic and professional development theory to equip you with the knowledge and skills that underpin effective practice education. These include approaches to education, clinical, managerial and leadership supervision within and across traditional professional boundaries.

The focus on professional learning provides a foundation for your wider advancing practice development. You will have opportunities to learn with and from colleagues, including membership of multi-professional learning sets and pathway-specific tutorials which enable you to plan and contextualise learning within your clinical specialty.

This is a core module that provides in-depth knowledge to develop your critical thinking in complex health environments. It will enhance your ability to respond efficiently to the rapidly changing health landscape and will allow you to make balanced clinical decisions when formulating differential diagnoses, based on systematic patient assessment. The module also provokes thinking about a personalised care strategy when managing health conditions and the wider population needs that impact on health services.

The educational delivery and ethos of this module emphasises and builds on autonomous self-directed learning for independent practice.

On this module you will lead, design, and deliver a small-scale, practice-based quality improvement project in your practice field, using the quality improvement project proposal you have learnt about in the Leadership in Advanced Clinical Practice module.

You will consider establishing baseline measures, selecting relevant quality improvement methodologies, and evaluation. You will produce a written project report which includes the rationale for your initiative, the methods and evaluation adopted, analysis and discussion of the outcomes achieved, and a reflection on what you have learnt from the project.

This module is designed to introduce you to a relatively new and expanding science that is bringing about quality improvements and enhancing patient safety by encouraging more effective use of research evidence within practice. It draws on theory and practice from a broad range of other professional disciplines, such as sociology, management, behavioural psychology, science and technology.

You will be encouraged to critically explore a range of strategies to support the integration of research findings with practice, considering this within the context of an ever-changing working environment and policy landscape.

Throughout the module you will engage with a wide range of learning activities that aim to develop both knowledge and skills, offering practical insight into how to make best use of resources and evidence, and helping you to effectively implement ideas within the context of your own professional practice.

This module is designed to give you a comprehensive foundation in clinical leadership, which will support your ongoing development as a leader in advanced clinical practice. It draws on contemporary research, opinion and wider leadership theory to equip you with the knowledge and skills that underpin effective clinical leadership, including approaches to operational and strategic service configuration and quality improvement within and across traditional professional and operational boundaries.

Opportunities to learn with, and from, colleagues include membership of multi-professional learning sets and pathway-specific tutorials for you to plan and contextualise learning within your clinical specialty.

This module gives you the opportunity to develop and apply advanced musculoskeletal knowledge and skills in a clinical setting. The focus is on work-based learning – you are encouraged to work closely with your employer to develop a framework that supports learning and development under the guidance of a clinical mentor. This development time is likely to differ according to your clinical practice environment and will be supported by the module team via a variety of technology-enhanced learning approaches.

The module offers the flexibility to develop skills and competence in a role appropriate to your practice and developmental needs. As such, it provides an opportunity to develop both role-specific and core attributes of an advanced musculoskeletal practitioner.

The module is compulsory for students on the Musculoskeletal pathway.

This module will help you develop advanced skills in assessment, reasoning and early management planning for patients presenting with undifferentiated acute injuries or illnesses, or acute exacerbations of chronic conditions, in an urgent or emergency setting. It will focus on the effective assessment, referral, safeguarding and health promotion of a range of vulnerable or complex patient groups through the network of urgent and emergency care services in the UK.

The module is compulsory for students on the Urgent and Emergency Care pathway.

Pre-requisites for this module include: Minor Injuries, Minor Illness, D&PDGs or equivalent.

The focus of this module is to advance your application of the current concepts of pain, enabling you to manage patients’ pain and to participate in life situations. Pain is considered a multidimensional experience, understanding it requires an in-depth knowledge of pain neuroscience and potential contributing factors which can be psychological, social or cultural. Through undertaking this module, you will develop their skills to evaluate and debate the literature around pain neuroscience and pain drivers. This will enable you to develop a critical approach to assessing an individual’s pain drivers and to create appropriate treatment plans in collaboration with individuals who are experiencing pain. At the foundation to this is adopting cognitive behavioural principles and an advanced communication approach. Through debate and interactive tutorials you will reflect on you own and societal beliefs about pain and how your communication can influence an individual’s understanding and management of pain.

The module will enable you to explore the theory and practice of managing key cardiovascular and neurological diseases in the prehospital setting. The particular emphasis will be on the recognition and referral to specialist services for these two major disease groups.

This module will explore the science behind medicine management and consider the safe practice of administration of medicines under PGDs in different clinical settings.

It is intended for clinical practitioners from a range of backgrounds who are administering medicines to patients in a range of settings. It is compulsory for those without a recognised non-medical prescribing qualification and who are not taking the non-medical prescribing module as part of their ACP studies. The module will serve as a foundation for aspiring future prescribers.

The prime aim of this module is to provide practitioners from different specialities and with the knowledge and competencies to manage, maintain, treat and/or transfer patients with diabetes to the appropriate tier of care. The outcomes will include improved personal confidence, more effective referral in the tiered structure of diabetes care, appropriate collaboration and engagement with the specialist team(s) and intelligent use new therapies.

This module is offered through St George's short courses and ACP students may take this module along with other healthcare professionals.

This module is designed to give you a foundational understanding of concepts of image generation, safety considerations and the knowledge to identify common pathological conditions.  The module draws on contemporary imaging practice and guidance from the Royal College of Radiologists. It provides you with opportunities to learn with and from colleagues in multiprofessional learning sets and pathway-specific tutorials so you can  plan  and  contextualise  learning  within  their  own  clinical specialty.

This module introduces health and social care professionals to the subject of human factors in a healthcare setting and allows them to gain a greater understanding of human limitations. By acknowledging these limitations, this module offers ways to minimise and mitigate human frailties and improve patient safety.

The emphasis of the module is to offer an evidenced-based and coherent approach to patient safety and clinical excellence. Human factors, often referred to as ergonomics, is an established scientific discipline used in other safety critical industries. The principles and practices taught on this module will optimise human performance, through better understanding the behaviour of individuals, their interactions with each other and with their environment.

This module is designed to enable students to demonstrate that they have acquired the skills and knowledge to practice as a First Contact Practitioner (FCP). It incorporates the concepts of academic, professional and personal development required for an FCP. It encourages students to further develop their ability to critically reflect and enhance their role. It facilitates the integration and use of skills, knowledge and attitudes learned in other modules for their FCP.

Students are required to produce a portfolio that evidences meeting the FCP capabilities. This portfolio can be reused, adapted and refined throughout an entire career as a Clinical Practitioner.

This module is required for the PG-Cert FCP (Paramedic) pathway and the PG-Cert FCP (Musculoskeletal) pathway.

This module is intended for health care professionals who are working in or towards a specialist or advanced role in prehospital critical care. The module will enable you to explore the theory and practice of critical care in the prehospital setting.

This module is aimed at health professionals who work with patients at the end of life in non-specialist palliative settings.

In this module you will learn the knowledge, skills and capabilities to make key clinical decisions through effective assessment, diagnosis and management. Throughout the module students will develop the advanced communication skills necessary to manage difficult situations at the end of life.

The module will introduce the organisational, policy and legislative frameworks governing palliative care in the UK. Emphasis will be placed on developing deep critical reflective skills which enable students to integrate the clinical, ethical and legal concerns common in managing end-of-life patients. Students will be supported to recognise and effectively respond to the personal impact of challenging situations.

This module will examine the psychology of behaviour and you will develop an in-depth understanding of psychological correlates, psychological well-being and psychological interventions pertaining to healthcare. From this module, you will critically develop an advanced knowledge of the sociological and psychological concepts that inform human behaviour in a healthcare context. You will also foster a knowledge and critique of the implementation of advanced communication skills within a therapeutic relationship and will allow participants to draw on their own practice as a focus.

The module provides healthcare professionals with authentic opportunities to explore autonomous practice in the context of undertaking a comprehensive holistic, structured clinical assessment of the patient using remote/digital technology. The module delivery and assessment are remote, allowing you to put your skills to practice immediately.

This module aims to enable students to extend their scope of practice to include the use of injection therapy. Teaching will include injection techniques. This module is designed to enable you to use injection therapy as part of your expanded advanced musculoskeletal practice. 

Transition to Advanced practice is a portfolio module designed to prepare you for advanced practice through work-based learning. This module requires 575 placement hours with the development of a portfolio and reflective essays.

This module is designed for practitioners directly involved in the emergency care of polytrauma patients. A range of traumatic injuries will be explored, but the focus will be upon initial assessment and management of these patients in the context of the emergency department.

This module is for healthcare professionals, such as nurses or paramedics, wishing to develop knowledge and skills in managing minor injuries in children and adults. It is intended to develop your practice through the efficient use of resources and enable you to manage patients presenting to urgent and primary care settings with minor injuries.

This module is designed for healthcare practitioners working towards advanced roles in primary care and community settings. It offers you the opportunity to evaluate the key challenges underpinning NHS targets within the field of hospital avoidance and ambulatory care.

This module builds on existing physical assessment and clinical reasoning skills to develop the practitioner’s pharmacology knowledge base. The module is delivered using a blended learning approach, which incorporates both face-to-face and online activities. A variety of strategies and techniques are employed, including simulation-based learning, to encourage critical enquiry and problem solving, in recognition of the complexities that may be encountered in prescribing practice.

This standalone Independent and Supplementary Prescribing module is suitable for Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) registrants from the professions, which are approved to become prescribers. The module focuses on developing the pharmacology knowledge base and physical examination with history taking that underpins supplementary and independent prescribing, as well as the theory and practice of prescribing. The module is delivered using a blended learning approach, which incorporates both face-to-face and online activities. A variety of strategies and techniques are employed, including simulation based learning, to encourage critical enquiry and problem solving, in recognition of the complexities that may be encountered in prescribing practice.

All students who successfully complete the module, will be eligible for their HCPC record to be modified to include Independent/Supplementary Prescribing.

This module can be taken as a free-standing module or as part of the Advanced Clinical Practice (MSc, PgDip and PgCert) pathways.

You should have all of the following:

• Honours degree (2:2 or above) from the UK or Republic of Ireland
• recognised healthcare/health-related professional qualification and current professional registration
• at least two years’ full-time clinical experience (or the equivalent in part-time hours) in health or social care employment (for example nursing, paramedics, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, pharmacy, radiology, etc), within a clinical service area relevant to Advanced Clinical Practice or the specified pathway you wish to follow (specific requirements and entry criteria apply to some modules and these will be indicated in the module outlines)
• employed in a senior clinical role (normally Agenda for Change Band 6 or 7)
• work in a practice setting which enables the achievement of the advanced clinical practice outcomes relating to the National Health Education England (HEE) multi-professional ACP Standards
• written evidence that your employer supports your learning and that there is the opportunity to develop into a role of Advanced Clinical Practice level

We accept equivalent qualifications gained in other countries.

Please see our Postgraduate International Equivalencies. For countries not on this list, we use UK ENIC to assess. Please see our International Student Support pages for more information.

If you have any questions, you can contact us at pgenquiries@sgul.ac.uk

This is a Group 1 course.

Full details can be found on our English Language requirements webpages.

You will be asked to outline your reasons for applying for the course in a brief personal statement on the application form.

You will also need to provide two satisfactory references. One of these should be a recent academic reference and the other should be either a second academic reference or a professional/employer reference. For those unable to provide an academic referee a second professional/employer reference will be permitted.

Go to the ‘Apply’ tab for more information.

Applicants to this module must:

• be registered with the HCPC in one of the relevant Allied Health Professions
• be professionally practising in an environment where there is an identified need for the individual to regularly use independent prescribing or supplementary prescribing
• be able to demonstrate support from their employer/sponsor* including confirmation that the entrant will have appropriate supervised practice in the clinical area in which they are expected to prescribe
• be able to demonstrate medicines and clinical governance arrangements are in place to support safe and effective supplementary and/or independent prescribing
• have an approved medical practitioner who will supervise, support, and assess the student during clinical placement
• have at least 3 years relevant post-qualification experience in the clinical area in which they will be prescribing
• be working at/or towards an advanced practitioner or equivalent level
• be able to demonstrate how they reflect on their own performance and take responsibility for their own Continuing Professional Development (CPD) including development of networks for support, reflection and learning
• provide evidence of a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) in England and Wales, or in Northern Ireland, an AccessNI check within the last three years or, in Scotland, be a current member of the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (PVG) scheme
• demonstrate evidence of physical assessment and history taking skills e.g. successful achievement of the ‘Clinical reasoning in physical assessment: lifespan perspectives’ 30 credit level 6 module, or equivalent certificated learning.