Advanced Clinical Practice - MSc
Currently viewing course to start in 2025/26 Entry.
Advanced clinical practitioners are experienced clinicians who demonstrate expertise in their scope of practice (Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, 2018)....
- Level Postgraduate Taught
- Study mode Part Time
- Award MSc
- Start date September 2025
- Subjects
- Location City South
This course is:
Overview
Advanced clinical practitioners are experienced clinicians who demonstrate expertise in their scope of practice (Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, 2018). Advanced clinical practice is delivered by experienced, registered health and care practitioners and is a level of practice characterised by a high degree of autonomy and complex decision making (Health Education England (HEE), 2017).
If you have any questions or queries about the course, please contact Sharon Bishop before applying. You can email Sharon.Bishop@bcu.ac.uk.
What's covered in this course?
Through evolving professional roles, practitioners are increasingly encouraged to develop advanced clinical skills, critical thinking and problem solving which enables them to meet the changing needs of patients through the development of new, accessible approaches to care and service delivery. This innovative course is designed to inform, enhance and develop practitioners’ advancing clinical roles, incorporating the four pillars of advanced practice; clinical practice; leadership and management; education and research (HEE, 2017).
You will be supported within the University setting as well as your own organisation to build on existing professional skills, knowledge and experience in order to develop the advanced skill set required of an autonomous practitioner, whilst meeting the complexity of modern healthcare challenges. Provision of opportunities to investigate, critically appraise and understand the evidence base for practice will develop your critical awareness, in order to further improve and advance practice through strategic development, leadership, education and innovation. You will be required to identify a clinical supervisor who will be able to support you throughout the course.
We are committed to providing excellent, innovative, learning, teaching and assessment experiences. We use technology to enhance your learning, through lectures, seminars, skills, simulation and virtual learning. Engagement of practice partners and service users in all areas of learning, teaching and assessment is integral to our approach. Our evidence based curriculum will empower you to develop and maintain high quality, safe and effective interdisciplinary advanced clinical practice provision.
Completion of this Masters course and successful integration of the advanced practice capabilities into the workplace provides you with the foundation for further career and academic development and progression, such as the attainment of Consultant Practitioner status and further doctoral studies.
Accredited By
The Centre for Advancing Practice
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. Programme accreditation from the Centre for Advancing Practice will bring a new level of consistency to the workforce and help showcase advanced practice within health and social care.
“I've been educated, trained and supported throughout my entire career by Birmingham City University. I've been very impressed right from my first days as an undergraduate, and they seem to be very focused on what nursing requires in terms of skills, knowledge and a critical ability out there in the clinical practice ”
Mark Radford
Why Choose Us?
- Winners of the Student Nursing Times Post-Registration Education Provider of the Year Award 2017
- Student satisfaction - 100% of students were happy with this course. (PTES 2021)
- This course follows the Health Education England framework
- The BCU ACP course is part of the West Midlands HEI ACP Advisory Group
- Reputation for excellence – we have over 20 years’ experience of training advanced practitioners and are one of the largest and most diverse providers of health and social care education in the country
- Enhance your professional credibility - we will enrol you in the region’s largest provider of qualified health and social care professionals to the NHS
- Our tutors have a range of clinical experience including Critical Care, Emergency and Urgent Care, and Primary Care, across regional and national developments in Advanced Practice.
- Benefit from our strong partnerships across health and social care providers both within the UK and internationally
- Learn in our £71 million campus with state-of-the-art environments and access to our cutting-edge virtual technologies and one of the UK’s largest specialist health education libraries
OPEN DAY
Join us for an on-campus Open Day where you'll be able to learn about this course in detail, chat to students, explore our campus and tour accommodation.
Next Event: 24 November 2024
Entry Requirements
Essential requirements
Essential requirements
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Current registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) or Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) or the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) |
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3 years post-registration clinical experience will be required. This experience needs to be related to the clinical environment within which you will be working at an advanced practice level |
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Evidence of study at level 6 in relevant subject area gained within the previous 5 years |
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Be employed in a role where there is an agreement from the employing organisation that the applicant will be supported and developed to work at an advanced practice level. This will include the need to allow protected learning time for both attendance at University and additional time for practice learning |
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Identification of a clinical supervisor |
Consideration may be given for applicants with significant clinical experience who have not completed a first degree but have level 6 credits, or applicants whose academic level 6 credits were awarded more than 5 years prior to applying to complete the course. Candidates will be required to complete pre-offer work for assessment by the course team to deem suitability for entry onto the course.
Qualifications and clinical experience that are not listed will be considered on an individual basis.
All applicants will be interviewed.
Applicants must provide a completed and signed clinical manager support form completed at interview.
If you have a qualification that is not listed, please contact us.
Fees & How to Apply
UK students
Annual and modular tuition fees shown are applicable to the first year of study. The University reserves the right to increase fees for subsequent years of study in line with increases in inflation (capped at 5%) or to reflect changes in Government funding policies or changes agreed by Parliament. View fees for continuing students.
Award: MSc
Starting: Sep 2025
- Mode
- Duration
- Fees
- Part Time
- 3 years
-
TBC
International students
Sorry, this course is not available to International students.
Important information about fees in year 2
In your second year the fees that you will need to pay will depend upon which of the following routes you take:
- You will need to complete Non-Medical Prescribing for Health (V300) (NMP course) for 40 credits if this is appropriate for your role and allowed by your professional regulatory body. You will also be required to undertaken one core 20 credit module. If this is the case, you will need to pay for the NMP course and the fees for one 20 credit module. By way of indication, the fee for the 40-credit NMP Course for the academic year 2024/25 is £2,145.
- If you have previously completed a NMP course, you may be eligible to apply for Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) for 20 or 40 credits (depending on the credits gained) from this into the MSc. You will still be required to complete 20 or 40 credits during this year. You will complete one core module for 20 credits. You may need to take one optional module from a range of level 7 20-credit modules within the Faculty. The fees for Year 2 will be charged by 20-credit module. Please note that fees increase up to 5% from year-to-year, so the 20-credit fee will be up to 5% higher than the fee shown above.
- If you have not completed a NMP course previously, and if it is not appropriate for you to do so (if your regulatory body does not permit this), you will be able to select two optional 20-credit modules from within the Faculty. The fees for Year 2 will be charged by 20-credit module. Please note that fees increase up to 5% from year-to-year, so the 20-credit fee will be up to 5% higher than the fee shown above. We will help you to select your two optional modules during your first year of study.
If you have any queries about the appropriate route for you and the fees that will be payable in your second year, then please contact Sharon Bishop on Sharon.Bishop@bcu.ac.uk.
Personal statement
You’ll need to submit a personal statement as part of your application for this course. This will need to highlight your passion for postgraduate study – and your chosen course – as well as your personal skills and experience, academic success, and any other factors that will support your application for further study.
If you are applying for a stand alone module, please include the title of the module you want to study in your Personal Statement.
Not sure what to include? We’re here to help – take a look at our top tips for writing personal statements and download our free postgraduate personal statement guide for further advice and examples from real students.
Course in Depth
Level 7 - Core Modules
In order to complete this course a student must successfully complete all the following CORE modules (totalling 140 credits):
This core module will introduce you to the context and positionality of working at an advanced practice level. You will be introduced to the four pillars of advanced practice (clinical practice; leadership and management; education; and research) and the distinct capabilities attributed within these. You will be supported to consider how these may be developed and applied within your own specific environments. Through a critical reflective approach, you will develop self-awareness of your own practice and how this can be enhanced as you develop your autonomous advanced practice. This will be done in context of legal, professional and ethical frameworks, ensuring that your professional practice is underpinned within these considerations.
This core module will enable you to effectively apply knowledge and underpinning theory of health and pathophysiology in performing your role within the advanced practice pillar of direct clinical care. Key features of this module are:
- Consultation / history taking
- Holistic patient examination
- Application of anatomy and physiology of body systems to discern health need
- Diagnostics – supporting tests/ investigations
- Clinical judgement and decision-making - critical
- Documentation and record-keeping
This core module aims to facilitate the development of knowledge and skills in order that you are able to work at the level of advance practice. This module will support you in leading and managing complex situations, where you will be making decisions that impact on service delivery and outcomes for a wide range of stakeholders. The module will address the key learning required in relation to the three pillars of leadership, research, and education and how these influence service improvements and innovations within clinical practice. This module will explore the need for change and innovation in healthcare with particular insight towards quality and effectiveness of service provision, and will closely relate to your real world of work.
This module provides you with the opportunity to complete a piece of work around a chosen topic in order to demonstrate competence in the planning, implementation, analysis and evaluation of a service progression and improvement project. The aim of a service development project is to bring about an organisational change for which there is existing evidence, or in response to policy/practice drivers. Any data collection and analysis, associated with a service development project, aims specifically to inform the local development and is not intended to have wider generalisability or transferability, although there will likely be recommendations that other practices may benefit from. Effective use of change management theory and methods will be central to a service development project.
This final core module of the MSc Advanced Clinical Practice course is designed to enable you to critically reflect on the skills, knowledge and behaviours you have developed across all four pillars of advanced practice. You will be expected to consolidate your learning and experience, developed on the course and in practice, ensuring your professional portfolio is up to date. You will be directed to ensure critical reflection and evaluation of your own scope of practice. The module assessment is designed to reflect the key academic and practice based knowledge, skills and behaviours you have developed during the course aligned to the four pillars of advanced clinical practice.
Level 7 - Optional Modules
In order to complete this course a student must successfully complete at least 40 credits from the following indicative list of OPTIONAL modules.
This module will prepare the student to safely, competently and compassionately undertake the role of an independent and supplementary prescriber to meet the needs of clients/patients and carers with whom they work. It is seen as the vehicle by which professional knowledge, skills, understanding, analysis and theoretical frameworks of prescribing can be examined, synthesised and re-considered. The fundamental assumption of the course is that becoming skilled in prescribing is as much about process as product. It is not just about adding new tasks but also about building upon previous knowledge, understanding and intellectual skills and re-defining and reviewing work processes.
This module will prepare the student to safely, competently and compassionately undertake the role of a non-medical prescriber to meet the needs of clients/patients and carers with whom you work having met HCPC standards. It is seen as the vehicle by which professional knowledge, skills, understanding, analysis and theoretical frameworks of prescribing can be examined, synthesised and re-considered. The fundamental assumption of the course is that becoming skilled in prescribing is as much about process as product. It is not just about adding new tasks but also about building upon previous knowledge, understanding and intellectual skills and re-defining and reviewing work processes.
The goal of non-medical prescribing is to enable swifter and speedier access to medicines for patients/clients and carers. It is an activity that requires the health care professional to expand their understanding, skills and knowledge in developing their prescribing role whilst adhering to relevant Professional Code of Conduct/Ethics.
- The choice of modules will be discussed with you and the Course Lead
- We have a range of CPD modules available
Download course specification
Download nowCourse structure
Your first year involves an introduction to the context, frameworks and capabilities of advanced level practice. The four pillars of advanced practice (clinical practice; leadership and management; education; and research) will be integrated through the modules, and you will be expected to develop across all of the pillars through the academic and clinical practice elements of the year. You will be supported to develop your patient/ service user consultation, assessment and decision making processes, supported with through evidence based theoretical teaching and practice-based learning.
In the second year, you will further develop your advanced practice capabilities across the four pillars. Through completion of the core module, you will be able to identify and justify the need for new, evidence based innovative service provision. You will also complete Non-Medical Prescribing for Health (NMP) (V300) if this is appropriate for your role and allowed by your professional regulatory body. Where this is not appropriate, you will be able to select two optional modules from a range of level 7 modules within the Faculty. If you have credits from previously completing the NMP course, you may only need to take one optional module.
For your final year, you will undertake the service development project that you developed in Year 2. You will be supported by a designated academic supervisor, and you will have the opportunity for shared learning with other students through action learning sets as you progress. You will have the opportunity to share your innovation through a showcase event. In the last module, you will be expected to consider, evaluate and consolidate your progress across the capabilities of advanced level practice.
What do I need to do?
You must have the full support and agreement from your employers that you are in an appropriate role or a trainee role to work at an advanced level, with appropriate governance for you to practice. It is important you have protected time to attend the module teaching and to work with your mentor/ supervisors in order to develop your capabilities. Confirmation of this support will be required prior to commencing the course.
You will be expected to have an appropriate mentor for the duration of the course. In addition, there will be additional requirements for support, supervision and assessment during the ‘Assessment’ module in Year 1.
You will be expected to keep an ongoing professional portfolio which will evidence your development across the four pillars. Elements from your portfolio will be key in many of the module assessments. Guidance will be provided about this. You may also be expected to maintain a portfolio by your credentialing body (such as RCEM). We will be able to guide you as to how these can complement each other.
The Centre for Advancing Practice
This programme is accredited by the Centre of Advancing Practice.
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. Programme accreditation from the Centre for Advancing Practice will bring a new level of consistency to the workforce and help showcase advanced practice within health and social care.
Employability
Enhancing Employability skills
Advanced clinical practitioners can move into a range of different fields within the health care sector, specialising in a number of areas. The assessment, clinical decision-making and differential diagnostic skills you’ll hone here will enable you to progress into roles as health care professionals, practising holistically in partnership with patients and their families.
Placements
Practice development takes place in your normal practice setting. Practice learning facilitators are identified to support you. These are normally a consultant or GP and a senior professional from your own discipline. They will work with you to assist you in achieving the required clinical competencies.
Facilities & Staff
Our Facilities
Our Nursing and Midwifery courses are based at our City South campus in leafy Edgbaston.
We’ve spent £41million expanding our facilities at City South. These facilities offer hands-on practical experience, replicating the spaces you will come across in professional practice.
In a sector where new techniques are constantly being discovered, we work hard to ensure that you learn using the most up-to-date equipment available. Alongside physical spaces such as a mock operating theatre and wards, we also make use of online and virtual technology, such as our virtual ward and virtual case creator.
See more of our skills facilities at City South
Centre for Skills and Simulation
The Centre for Skills and Simulation offers a range of different spaces which replicate situations that you will encounter in practice. These include hospital wards, an operating theatre and a home environment room.
Our mock wards enable you to get a feel of what a ward is really like before you head out for your first placement. The hospital wards can be adapted from low care to high dependency care environment with the necessary monitoring equipment.
The home environment room is the perfect space for teaching communications skills and allows us to simulate a community setting for our students. It is particularly useful for mental health nurses, learning disability nurses and midwives.
Simulation Manikins
We have several Simulation men (SIM men) and simulation babies (SIM babies) which are anatomically correct manikins used for teaching specific techniques such as advanced adult and paediatric life support skills, acute and high dependency clinical skills, first aid and communication skills. The manikins contain software which replicates real symptoms, and can manipulate indicators such as blood pressure, pulse and heart rate for extra realism. SIM man can even ‘talk’ to the students as they are treating him, to add another dimension to learning.
Computer Facilities
The Seacole building has two open-access IT Suites which offer PCs, printers, photocopiers and scanners. There is also an IT Helpdesk for quick and easy help with your computing or internet issues.
Our PCs utilise the latest Intel i5 core technology, all with:
- Fast (unrestricted) internet connectivity
- Ability to save files to USB, DVD & CD
- Microsoft Office software
- Research and statistical software
- Storage space which can be accessed from any PC across the University and from home
Our PCs are also designed to support students who may have difficulties with reading and writing, featuring specialised software with zooming/magnification and screen reading capabilities, which may also be customised for individual student needs.
In addition to desktop PCs, we also offer a laptop loan facility, allowing students to borrow a laptop for up to six hours while on campus.
Our staff
Sharon Bishop
Senior Lecturer / Course Lead
After qualifying, Sharon developed experience across a range of clinical environments before gaining a staff nurse post in Intensive Care. During this time she progressed in this specialty, ultimately attaining a senior role.
More about SharonKatherine Lemon
Senior Lecturer in Advanced Practice and Non-Medical Prescribing
Katherine qualified as a Children’s nurse in 2003 and after gaining experience across many sub specialities, went on to train as an Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP) in Paediatric Emergency Medicine. Having practiced in her role as an ANP and Non-medical Prescriber (NMP) for ten years, she took up the position of Senior Lecturer at BCU to further...
More about KatherineHelen Cope
Course Leader for MSc Transforming and Leading in Healthcare
Helen has spent 25 years as a consultant running her own business, helping healthcare and private sector organisations nationally and internationally improve their practice and innovate. She has an HR and Organisational Development background and is a keen advocate of change. Focused on effective, engaging and innovative teaching, Helen...
More about HelenAleksandra Naglowska
Senior Lecturer
Aleksandra Naglowska is a Polish national who relocated to the United Kingdom almost two decades ago. Upon arriving in the UK she completed the Graduate Diploma in Nursing with distinction at Birmingham City University and received the BCU Student of Excellence Award.
More about Aleksandra