Non-medical Prescribing for Health Care Professionals (Level 6) - 40 credits

The course meets the requirements and standards of both the NMC and HCPC and prepares you to prescribe safely and competently as an independent prescriber or supplementary prescriber to meet the needs of clients/patients and carers with whom you work.

As a supplementary prescriber you will work in a voluntary partnership with a registered medical practitioner (a doctor or dentist) to implement an agreed patient-specific written clinical management plan (CMP) with the patient’s agreement.

As an independent prescriber, you will be responsible and accountable for the assessment of patients with undiagnosed or diagnosed conditions and for decisions about the clinical management required, including prescribing.

You will be required to reflect systematically on your learning to evaluate and apply knowledge and skills to achieve the assessments of the course. Key aspects of the course are the practice assessment document including the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) Competency Framework for all Prescribers; personal development planning; reflective practice and a pharmacology examination. In line with PSRB requirements there will be a written pharmacology examination with a pass mark of 80% and a numeracy assessment with a pass mark of 100%. The course learning outcomes are written to ensure that they are applied to adult, mental health, learning disabilities; children’s nursing; midwifery and also SCPHN.

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 prescribing provision.

The prescribing courses are available to practitioners working in both the NHS, self-employed or non-NHS employed registrants. You must meet NMC or HCPC entry criteria alongside any specific entry requirements set by your employer. Please note that Paramedics must undertake the course at level 7 only.

Nurses and midwives must register the V300 award with the NMC within five years of successfully completing the course. If you fail to do this you will have to retake and successfully complete the course in order to qualify and register your award as a prescriber.

You may only prescribe once your prescribing qualification has been recorded/annotated on the relevant PRSB register and you may only prescribe from the formulary you are qualified to prescribe from and within your competence and scope of practice.

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.