Advanced Clinical Practice PgCert, PgDip and MSc

Are you an experienced healthcare professional? Are you looking for the right qualifications to further your career? Perhaps you're a practicing occupational therapist, physiotherapist or nurse, for example, and would like to develop your medical career into a leadership role? This course has been designed with this in mind. 

There are an increasing number of people who are living with complex and long-term health conditions and healthcare practitioners are needing to develop new skills in order to better meet their needs. This course helps to bridge that gap by developing your advanced patient assessment skills, complex decision-making skills, and professional expertise to develop you into an autonomous practitioner.

You’ll gain the practical knowledge alongside a theoretical understanding of advance practice in order to take on advanced clinical roles within a range of healthcare settings, sectors and specialties. You’ll learn how to improve the capabilities of an interdisciplinary medical team and, through research-informed decisions, enhance service delivery in order to improve your patients' quality of care.

Whether you’re based within hospital or community settings, this course will build on your current skills and experience so that you’ll be able to lead and support the development and delivery of advanced clinical practice. On successful completion, you’ll have gained the necessary skills and knowledge to take on expanded roles and scope of practice, caring for patients within your clinical area.

The course can be studied 3 years part-time starting in September. If you don’t want to commit to full or part-time study of the entire master's, you can develop your educational portfolio over a longer period of time by undertaking staged study that leads to the award of Postgraduate Certificate (PgCert), Postgraduate Diploma (PgDip) and MSc in separate stages. Each stage can be studied 1 year part-time starting in September.

You’ll benefit from a course designed to incorporate a multidisciplinary perspective, necessary for leading in today’s global health care systems. You’ll learn a holistic approach to patient care alongside clinical leadership skills and how to use evidence-based practice and research to make informed decisions that grow your knowledge and expertise.

You’ll study key modules in advanced clinical practice, clinical leadership, evidence-based practice and research and, in addition to the option module listed below, you'll also be able to select from a range of optional modules from our Advanced Clinical Practice named specialist pathways in Cardiovascular Health, Critical Care, Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation, Neurological Rehabilitation, Occupational Therapy and Pelvic Health. This will give you the opportunity to advance your practice.

At Brunel, we understand the challenges of fitting study around work and family life. For this reason, we have designed this course to be flexible, so that it can fit around your current commitments. You can study full-time, part-time or even just take one or more CPPD modules for your professional development and return to complete your course at a later date.

This course can be studied 1 year part-time, 3 years part-time or 1 year (staged study) part-time, starting in September.

Following successful completion of this course, you’ll be fully prepared for a leadership role as an advanced practitioner in your relevant clinical profession (e.g. nursing, occupational therapy or physiotherapy) or can move into a variety of senior positions within a range of healthcare settings.

There are an increasing number of advance clinical practice roles and this master's will give you the relevant knowledge and skills to step into these positions. Potential roles you could assume include Advance Clinical Practitioner or Case Manager.

This programme is ideal for senior clinicians, clinical leads, managers, and research academics who are looking to develop and improve the care and experience of patients and their families, along with service provision.

All applicants must have a pre-registration degree in relevant allied health profession and the following of relevant experience as a minimum:

1. Students currently working in the UK - At least 1 year of post qualification clinical work experience in the specialism they have applied for. Typically this should be work experience from a ‘Band 6’ level role.
2. Students currently working outside of the UK – At least 2 years post qualification clinical work experience, ideally including at least 1 year in the specialism you have applied for.

You must have met the minimum work experience requirement at the point you apply for the programme. For example, if you submit your application in February 2023, you must have 1 / 2 years’ experience by February 2023 (depending on whether you are working in or outside the UK). This is to make sure that you will definitely have enough experience when you join the course. This does not include internships as they are supervised and therefore technically still part of your training. You should aim to provide documented evidence of your clinical work experience. All applicants should include a detailed CV as part of their application. Applicants who are working outside of the UK should could include letters of recommendations and/or confirmation of employment (we appreciate that what you can provide will vary from one person to another and be dependent on your specific background and employer, so please aim to provide as much documentary evidence when you apply).

• IELTS: 7 (min 6.5 in all areas)
• Pearson: 64 (59 in all subscores)
• BrunELT: 68% (63% in all areas)
• TOEFL: 98 (min 23 in all areas) 

UK Staged Master £3,500 per stage.

International Staged Master £7,155 per stage.

The course uses a range of flexible and engaging approaches to assessment. You'll be assessed through exams, critical essays, portfolios, oral presentations, and your dissertation.

The choice of the specific type of assessment will be appropriate to the intended learning outcomes of the taught modules. The assessment strategies will balance the need to demonstrate knowledge and competencies with more in-depth and critical approaches to learning. Such assessment approaches will include examinations, presentations of relevant clinical case scenarios, and coursework, which will take the form of critical assessment of literature and research, critical essays, and the development of the selected portfolio of learning.

Finally, the dissertation provides demonstration of an ability to synthesise and critically evaluate current research underpinning clinical practice, and to develop and undertake relevant research as well as its dissemination.