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Employer webinar: Enhancing your healthcare workforce

Medical professional

The Open University has proven expertise in delivering practice-based healthcare qualifications that boost workforce skills to the benefit of both employers and employees. We work with over 435 healthcare employers in the UK, developing career pathways for employees, building skills and enhancing talent pipelines.

We recently hosted a webinar, with four panelists discussing our healthcare qualifications and how they benefit employers. In particular, it focused on three specific Open University programmes: our Postgraduate Certificate in Non-Medical Prescribing, our MSc in Advanced Clinical Practice and our Advanced Clinical Practitioner Degree Apprenticeship.

Elisabeth Barbosa, Business Development Manager, Health, at the OU, opened the webinar, which was called ‘Enhancing your healthcare workforce: Non-Medical Prescribing and Advanced Clinical Practice’. Elisabeth talked about The Open University’s longstanding ethos of education for all.

The OU delivers content that is really well regarded and renowned for its quality, but also for the way in which its learning is designed, especially to support working professionals. Ease of access and flexibility is critical to learners. They have commitments, both at work and at home, and they need that flexibility. It’s very important to employers as well.

Elisabeth Barbosa
Business Development Manager, Health, The Open University

Planning for the future

Our programmes enable healthcare employers to improve workforce planning through the promotion and development of non-medical prescribers and advanced clinical practitioners. These roles have been identified as being hugely important in both the short and the long term and are part of the NHS’s Long Term Plan.

Non-medical practitioners and advanced clinical practitioners benefit organisations in the following ways:

  • Make better use of the skills of the experienced healthcare professionals working within your organisation
  • Benefit from a more qualified and flexible workforce to help meet current and future service demands
  • Improve care for service users, such as reduced waiting times and increased clinical continuity
  • Provide staff with career development opportunities which values their skills and aids retention

A flexible approach to learning

The study material is designed to be very interactive and engaging and is delivered in a variety of media formats, so that students can choose how they learn. We have created an award-winning app called OU Anywhere, so that students can access learning on the go.

Shelley Peacock, Senior Lecturer of Non-Medical Prescribing, says a key tenet of the education delivery strategy is discussing real workplace challenges: “Our teaching and learning approach is focused on inquiry-based learning, which is a form of active learning that starts by posing questions, problems or scenarios. The students identify and research issues and questions to develop their knowledge and solutions, taking problems and thoughts from clinical practice and bringing them to the table to discuss with others and the academics.”

At the OU, we provide a unique, practice-based route to develop Non-Medical Prescribers and Advanced Clinical Practitioners that helps employers grow their talent pipeline from within. Our programme in Non-Medical Prescribing is approved by the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the Health and Care Professions Council and accredited by the General Pharmaceutical Council.

That practice-based approach includes:

  • Student-centred shared curriculum that cultivates independent learning and practice
  • Learning for practice and learning in practice integrated throughout the programme
  • Module materials developed with partners and service users
  • clear strategies for building digital literacy, information literacy and numeracy across the programme
  • Integration of study skills and support

Jacky Price, Senior Lecturer of Advanced Clinical Practice, says this practice based, collaborative approach to learning is inherent throughout the learning cycle. “The programme has been developed to reflect the learning that underpins safe and effective practice in non-medical prescribing and advanced clinical practice, as well as promoting learning approaches that enable learners to transfer their learning to their area of practice.” It includes learning activities, reflective scenarios, case studies and professional discussion forums.

To find out more about the programmes, please contact us.

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