Independent Prescribing for Pharmacists Postgraduate Certificate - PgCert

Overview\
If you're an experienced practicing pharmacist and want to further your career in a specialist area, joining our PgCert Independent Prescribing for Pharmacists course is the perfect way to fulfil your ambitions.

On this course you'll develop your clinical examination and consultation skills, and build on your understanding of pharmacology and therapeutics, to inform evidence-based management decisions alongside patients within your chosen scope of practice.

When you graduate, you'll be qualified for a career as an independent prescriber within a clinical setting.

What you'll experience\
On this course, you'll:

* Learn from experts in the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, and the School of Health Sciences and Social Work

* Get hands-on experience in clinical examination and history taking

* Study topics including pharmacology and therapeutics for prescribers, clinical skills for prescribers, and professional aspects of prescribing

* Improve your counselling and consultation skills in our practice dispensary facilities, where you'll consult with patient actors

* Build on your clinical simulation expertise in our clinical skills suite, featuring both CAE and Laerdal human patient simulators

* Be supported by experienced clinical pharmacists as you develop your competencies portfolio

Careers and opportunities\
Graduates have gone on to take roles in:

Mental health\
Rheumatology\
Minor ailments\
Pain management\
Nutrition\
Travel medicine\
Critical care\
Cardiology\
Renal disease\
HIV medicine

We'll provide you with as much support as possible in finding employment through close industrial contacts, careers events, recruitment fairs and individual advice.

Changes to course content\
We use the best and most current research and professional practice alongside feedback from our students to make sure course content is relevant to your future career or further studies.

Therefore, some course content may change over time to reflect changes in the discipline or industry and some optional units may not run every year. If a unit doesn’t run, we’ll let you know as soon as possible and help you choose an alternative unit.

Work experience and career planning\
We'll help you opportunities that will complement your studies.

When you finish the course, our Careers and Employability service can help you find a job that puts your skills to work in the healthcare industry.

After you leave the University, you can get help, advice and support for up to 5 years from our Careers and Employability service as you advance in your career.

Learning support\
As well as support by faculty teaching staff and your personal tutor, you can use the University’s Academic Skills Unit (ASK).

ASK provides one-to-one support in areas such as:

academic writing\
note taking\
time management\
critical thinking\
presentation skills\
referencing\
working in groups\
revision, memory and exam techniques

Teaching\
Teaching on this course includes:

online learning\
seminars\
workshops\
practice

How you'll spend your time\
Each academic year is divided into 2 teaching blocks and an assessment period:

Autumn teaching block – September to December\
Spring teaching block – January to Easter\
Assessment period – Easter to June\
Most teaching takes place during the day, on Thursdays, Fridays and very occasionally on Saturdays. You may occasionally need to go to University and course events in the evenings and at weekends.

How you're assessed\
You'll be assessed through:

practical skills assessment\
written case studies and therapeutic reviews\
portfolio of competencies and reflective accounts