Entry requirements
You will need to:
- hold a degree from a UK university or equivalent, or in the case of non-graduates, be able to demonstrate equivalent academic ability and professional experience.
- be a level 1 NMC registered nurse (RN), a pharmacist registered with the GPhC, or an allied health professional registered with the HCPC and satisfy the professional regulatory requirements to enter on to a prescribing programme.
- have a current and valid Access NI (Northern Ireland), PVG scheme (Scotland) or Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) (England) declaration.
- have been deemed competent to safely and effectively practice clinical/health assessments; diagnostics/care management; planning and evaluating care within your proposed area of prescribing practice
- have a supporting organisation which is able to provide governance, learning opportunities and continued service provision.
- have identified an appropriate Designated Prescribing Practitioner (DPP) who has agreed to supervise your learning in practice. For nurses, this is a Practice Supervisor to supervise clinical practice and Practice Assessor to assess clinical practice.
How to apply
The next start date is September 2023, and registration details will follow shortly.
How long study takes
The minimum time to complete this qualification is seven months and must be completed within 13 months to meet the requirements of the regulatory bodies.
The expected total study time is 600 hours, which will include:
- four separate days of face-to-face activities1.Two of which will be held online and two will be face-to-face on the Milton Keynes campus (an online alternative will take place if we're unable to deliver the face-to-face campus days)
- four days equivalent of synchronous online forum-based activities (15 x 2 hour sessions)
- 18 days online study activities
- 90 hours of supervised, in-practice learning
- 315 hours of self-directed learning
There is a compulsory 100% attendance requirement for the on-campus face-to-face sessions (these may be delivered online where required) and an 80% attendance/completion for all other directed learning. Achieving less than this will mean automatic withdrawal from the course.
Prior learning, experience and clinical exposure will help with the self-directed learning portion, so you may find that you require fewer self-directed hours than that specified here. This is perfectly admissible, but a pass in all summative assessments must be achieved in order to be awarded a pass in the overall module/qualification.
1Previously this qualification description stated an online alternative was available alongside the four face-to-face activities. This description was updated on 17 June 2022 to clarify that online activities would only be offered if face-to-face activities were unable to go ahead.