Healthcare Science

Citizens of the UK, or those with indefinite leave to remain in the UK, can apply for this course.

Voluntary and work experience

We understand the challenges for our prospective applicants for medicine and allied health courses trying to gain work experience at this time, particularly in clinical settings.    

In response to the government’s social distancing guidelines, which have a significant impact on all areas of life, we have chosen to relax our work experience requirements for prospective applicants for our courses which would normally require these.    

Despite the relaxed requirements, we still require our applicants to have an understanding of the realities of working as a healthcare professional and to show they have the necessary skills and attributes for their chosen career. Online resources can give you valuable insight into working in the healthcare sector and outline the wide range of careers and courses available. You can find a number of suggested resources for each of our courses here. 

Health and police screening

We have an obligation to both patients and to the individual students, so if you are accepted onto a healthcare course you are required to pass occupational health screening. If you are concerned about a health issue you are strongly advised to contact us prior to applying. All offers of places are made subject to satisfactory health clearance and an agreement to undergo appropriate blood tests and immunisations.

You will be asked to be immunised against Hepatitis B for personal safety, so please contact your general practitioner (GP) to arrange screening. You should begin a course of Hepatitis B immunisation as soon as you submit your UCAS application, as it consists of three injections over a six month period. If you firmly accept an offer you will be sent a confidential health questionnaire and further information about the process of screening for Hepatitis B.

This course includes working with children and vulnerable adults so you must have an enhanced DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check. More information about this will be sent to you as part of the admissions process.

Professional registration

If you are a current healthcare professional or a member of a registered professional body, you must provide details of your registration. If your professional registration has been suspended or revoked, or undergone a disciplinary/fitness to practice investigation, you will be required to provide further information if selected for interview. This will be reviewed by the admissions tutor and you may be required to provide full copies of related documentation. Any information you disclose will only be used for the purpose of considering your application to the applied course.

If you have studied but not completed a degree at an alternative university or are re-applying on the basis of A Levels, you must provide formal evidence as to why you withdrew from your studies previously. We will review each application on a case by case basis; however, we are not able to consider you if you have been suspended from previous studies due to fitness to practice issues or failure in assessments/examinations.

The following qualifications may enhance your application, but will not contribute to the minimum requirements:

• NVQs
• Massage courses
• Sports Coaching degree, unless you have Biology A Level in addition
• ITEC Anatomy and Physiology
• Some international qualifications (to be assessed on application).

If you are applying on the basis of A Levels, you must meet both the A Level and GCSE requirements below.

GCSEs

If you are applying on the basis of International Baccalaureate, you need to meet both our Higher Level and Standard Level requirements, as outlined below.

If you are applying on the basis of an Access Diploma, you must meet both the Access Diploma and GCSE requirements below.

GCSEs

If you are applying from outside of the UK, you will need to meet the English language requirements outlined here. This is a group 1 course.

Citizens of the UK, or those with indefinite leave to remain in the UK, can apply for this course.

Applicants should demonstrate an awareness of clinical physiology, and an interest in a clinical career.

We understand the challenges for our prospective applicants for medicine and allied health courses trying to gain work experience at this time, particularly in clinical settings.    

In response to the government’s social distancing guidelines, which have a significant impact on all areas of life, we have chosen to relax our work experience requirements for prospective applicants for our courses which would normally require these.    

Despite the relaxed requirements, we still require our applicants to have an understanding of the realities of working as a healthcare professional and to show they have the necessary skills and attributes for their chosen career. Online resources can give you valuable insight into working in the healthcare sector and outline the wide range of careers and courses available. You can find a number of suggested resources for each of our courses here.

Should you receive an offer to study at St George’s, you will be required to complete a health check and be declared fit to study and practise by the Occupational Health (OH) department before you begin your studies.

The following vaccinations are mandatory for all healthcare students before you begin your studies:

• MMR (measles, mumps and rubella)
• Meningococcal meningitis
• Diphtheria
• Pertussis (whooping cough)
• Poliomyelitis
• Tetanus

As part of the process, you will also be screened by the OH team for Chickenpox, Tuberculosis, HIV and Hepatitis B and C.

When admitting candidates to study and practise as a health practitioner, we have an obligation to both patients and to the individual student. Candidates who are concerned about a health issue are advised to contact us.

This course will include work with children and vulnerable adults, so you will be required to submit a series of declarations.

If you are invited to an interview, we will request some additional information from you, regarding your criminal record, educational history and employment history. You will also have the opportunity to make any other declarations that you’d like us to be aware of. We may not able to consider applicants who were suspended from previous study/work due to fitness to practise issues or failure in assessments/examinations.

If you are made an offer, you will be required to complete an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. More information about this is sent to applicants as part of the admissions process.

• Course content covers both cardiac physiology and respiratory/sleep physiology.

• Gain a BSc (Hons) in Healthcare Science while on your apprenticeship journey.

• At least 20% of the time in off-the-job training.

• Employment in a job with legal and contractually acceptable terms and conditions.

• Entry to a recognised occupation and a guaranteed starting salary point up to NHS Band 5, with clear training and progression.

• Eligibility for professional registration with RCCP or AHCS on successful completion.

You’ll be taught by staff with a background with experience of leading specialist cardiac, respiratory and sleep services. Where possible, current clinical physiology practitioners will also share their experiences: guest lectures have previously covered interpretation of sleep studies, paediatric lung function, hypoxic challenge testing, tilt testing for heart conditions and introduction to echocardiography and implantable cardioverter defibrillators.

Our teaching draws on the wealth of experience of our placement collaborators and alumni, who present masterclasses and workshops that enrich your learning. In previous years, the Royal National Institute of Blind People has highlighted to students best practice when dealing with blind patients.

On placement, you will be supervised, mentored and assessed by practising physiologists. Some of our placement sites also have STP and HSST scientists, who have to teach as part of their programme.

We use a range of assessment techniques, chosen to match the competencies being learned and tested within each module. These include written exam papers, academic coursework (essays, posters, presentations, reflective writing), the final year project dissertation (including clinical viva), clinical assessments that take place during placements and a portfolio of clinical work.

We use some formative assessments early on, including an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) in Year 1 prior to going on placement, to help you to develop your skills, and provide interactive learning resources to help you judge your own understanding of some of the more difficult material. Clinical Training modules are pass-fail, but marks for the other modules accumulate to give your final degree classification.

You must provide:

• full details of your Level 2 (GCSE or equivalent) qualifications with grades

• full details of your Level 3 (A Level or equivalent) qualifications with achieved/predicted grades

• a personal statement (more information about this document is available on the UCAS website)

• an academic reference from your current or most recent institutions with predicted grades

After submitting your application to UCAS:

• log in to UCAS Track and make sure all your academic details have been included

• if any subjects or predicted results are missing, email the Admissions Officer with your UCAS number and missing subjects and grades.

We will consider applications from applicants who wish to defer entry by a year, provided you plan to use the time constructively. If you are offered a place on the course and subsequently decide to defer, you must inform us by 1 June of the year of application.

We will send you an acknowledgement email and letter when we receive your application. Please make sure your email account is able to accept communications from St George’s as we will mainly communicate with you via email. Selected applicants will be invited to attend interview. Decisions from St George’s will be entered onto UCAS Track and direct applicants will be contacted via email.

Students with pre-existing illnesses or disabilities, or who are shielding

If you suffer, or have suffered, from a serious illness (physical or psychological) or have a disability, or have been required to shield due to Covid-19, please let us know. St George’s is committed to supporting our students and will explore all reasonable adjustments to support you to thrive on your course.

Please contact our Disability Advisor as soon as possible with details to help us establish whether your health history or disability is likely to affect your ability to study or practise. This will also give us sufficient time to carry out a detailed assessment, obtain reports and organise additional expert assessments if required.

Attendance at site

Most of our courses include elements of teaching for which you will be required to attend the University site. Attendance at these sessions will be essential to enable you to engage with the course and undertake assessments.

Placements

You will be required to undertake a personal risk assessment before you can attend any placement that is part of your course (or undertake certain other activities, such as those which include the practice of clinical skills or require the use of PPE). Where a health concern arises, every effort will be made to identify alternative placement arrangements, but your health and safety will be the first priority, and alternative arrangements may not be possible. This may have implications for the continuation of your study. If you are clinically vulnerable or have been shielding, we strongly encourage you to contact the Disability Advisor now to undertake an assessment.

Students with pre-existing illnesses or disabilities, or who are shielding

If you're a student with a pre-existing illness or disability, or who is shielding, your course team will contact you to ask if you would like to complete a personal risk assessment before you return to the site. If you suffer from a serious illness which may increase your level of risk, or have been required to shield due to Covid-19, we recommend that you complete a personal risk assessment. St George’s is committed to supporting our students and will explore all reasonable adjustments to support you to thrive on your course. 

Attendance at site

For the majority of our courses we will delivering an element of face to face, hands-on teaching on campus in line with social distancing guidelines which you are required to attend. If you will be unable to attend teaching on site due to a health reason, you must let us know by start of the academic year so we can consider alternative arrangements to ensure you progress through the course. Mitigating Circumstances can still be submitted for unforeseen illnesses; however, being unable to attend the site due to shielding or being at heightened risk from a pre-existing illness or disability will not be accepted as grounds for Mitigating Circumstances. Please discuss this with your course team and complete a personal risk assessment so that all reasonable adjustment can be made.

Placements 

You will be required to undertake a personal risk assessment before you can attend any placement (or undertake certain other activities, such as those including the practice of clinical skills or requiring the use of PPE) that is part of your course. Where a health concern arises, every effort will be made to identify alternative placements arrangements, but your health and safety will be the first priority, and where alternative arrangements are not possible, there may be implications for your studies. If you are clinically vulnerable or have been shielding, we strongly encourage you to contact your course team now to undertake a personal risk assessment.

We are expecting to deliver the course within the planned timescales, and for students to progress and graduate without delay.

Although some assessments are designed to be taken on site, we have developed an alternative strategy allowing assessments to be completed remotely without coming on to campus.

The programme does include practical elements that are delivered in laboratories and, in the case of anatomy, in our Dissection Room. Also clinical skills training is held in one of the clinical skills labs. These will all run as planned in 2020/21 with appropriate social distancing measures and PPE where appropriate. There is a possibility that government advice on social distancing may change. In that case, we will endeavour to delay practical components of the programme to a subsequent semester (or year) to protect the safety of students.

We are expecting to deliver the course within the planned timescales, and for students to progress and graduate without delay.

Although some assessments are designed to be taken on site, you will be aware from the last academic year that we have developed alternative strategies for assessments to be completed remotely without coming on to campus.

The programme does include practical elements that are delivered in laboratories. These will run as planned in 2020/21 with appropriate social distancing measures.  There is a possibility that government advice on social distancing may change. If that is the case, we will endeavour to delay practical components of the programme to a subsequent semester (or year) to protect the safety of students.

Final year students will continue to do final year projects. These are usually conducted on a placement site, under the supervision of clinical coordinators, performing audits service evaluations. It may not be possible to perform any research due to current JRES regulations. We will strive to ensure that alternative arrangements are in place to enable students to complete on schedule. Systematic reviews or meta-analysis maybe an option – this has been discussed with the library and CIDe to review the software for this to be carried out. 

For clinical programmes, placement providers will continue to offer placements as they have in previous years. Their capacity to offer placements may change if, in the event of a further outbreak of Covid-19, delivering care to affected patients becomes the overriding priority. If that happens, we will limit the impact on students where possible. We will rotate students through the sites that are continuing to accept students and, where possible, we will use our simulation facilities to offer a comparable clinical experience. For continuing students, it may be possible to delay placements to the following academic year to protect student safety. However, there is a possibility that graduation for some final year students may be delayed until they are able to complete all placements.

We do not expect students to incur any extra costs over and above those that we have advertised on the course page.

As a result of our courses beginning with the majority of teaching online, you will need a personal laptop or computer and access to the internet to participate in online lectures. Information is available on recommended device specification. If you are worried you might struggle to meet these requirements, you should email IThardship@sgul.ac.uk so we can look at support options for you.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) will be provided for you if needed.

We do not expect students to incur any extra costs over and above the normal level, as previously advertised on the course page.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) will be provided for you if needed.

We assess the knowledge, skills and attributes of our students in a variety of ways. These include formal written examinations, practical examinations and in-course assessments which might include essays, practical write-ups and special study reports, oral presentations) and poster presentations. 

All formal written examinations take place in February, June and July. At this stage, we expect to deliver these assessments as planned. Although some assessments are designed to be taken on site, we successfully developed an alternative strategy in 2019/20 to enable students to complete assessments remotely, without coming on to campus. For example, formal examinations were taken remotely by students within at a time of their choosing within a window stipulated by us; DOPS were replaced with written scenario-based questions; and CBD were replaced with written questions. If the government advice on social distancing changes, we will take this approach again.

Assessments where students are directly observed performing a practical or clinical skill by an examiner can only be delivered on campus or on clinical placement. Assessments within which a student’s ability to communicate appropriately with a patient or simulated patient can also only be delivered on site or clinical placement.

At this stage, we expect to be able deliver assessments of this kind on site or placement.  However, if government advice changes and the campus is closed and students have to leave their placements, we would not be able to deliver these assessments as planned. If that was the case, it might be possible to delay these assessments to the next academic year to protect student safety. If that happens, graduation for some final year students may be delayed until you are able to complete all assessments, because we have an obligation to our regulators to confirm that our students have met the clinical and practical outcomes for the programme before they graduate.

The changes that we are making are the consequence of current public health advice, and our capacity to offer alternatives is limited by that advice. If you wish to avoid these changes by deferring your offer please contact admissions@sgul.ac.uk.

The changes that we are making are the consequence of current public health advice, and our capacity to offer alternatives is limited by that advice. You will be required to consent to these changes as part of your re-enrolment. If you wish to avoid these changes (e.g. by taking a year out from your studies) please discuss this directly with your course team in the first instance. We remain, as always, focused on the best experience and outcomes for our students.