AdvDip(CPD) Advanced Diploma in CPD - Preparation of Community Nurse Prescribers (V150) HE6
Course Overview
On successful completion of this course and registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), you’ll be able to prescribe as a Community Practitioner Nurse Prescriber from the Nurse Prescribers’ Formulary for Community Practitioners.You’ll have the opportunity to delve deeper into key subject areas such as legislation and professional accountability and responsibility in relation to your role as a Community Practitioner Nurse Prescriber. You’ll also look into the roles and relationships of others who prescribe, supply and administer medicine, and the resulting influences on your own prescribing practice.
We’ll support you as you learn how to assess patients and consult with carers effectively, so you can diagnose accurately and prescribe cost-effectively. You’ll also be able to learn how to evaluate key pharmacological factors and principles that affect therapeutic interventions, and monitor responses to therapy and modify treatments.
Meanwhile, we encourage you to underpin your newfound knowledge and skills with a reflective approach to the continuing professional development of your own prescribing practice.
Highlights
- Our dedicated academic team brings extensive health and social care experience to the course content. Along with a passion for service excellence in health and social care settings, they’re also currently engaged in highly relevant research, which means they can add valuable context and insight to your learning.
- The course is designed to provide the flexibility to fit in with busy home and working lives.
- As you study this course, we’ll encourage you to develop the skills, values and behaviours so popular with employers. These include action planning, personal impact and confidence, self-awareness, social and ethical responsibility, respect, and commitment to quality.
Key Features
- The University of Bolton has been offering high-quality courses designed to meet the health and social care sector’s needs for over 30 years, so we have the knowledge and experience to anticipate and respond to changes in the health and social care sector.
- Our courses and programmes respond directly to the requirements of the NHS Knowledge and Skills Framework (KSF), which is at the heart of the career and pay progression aspect of Agenda for Change.
- We review the course curriculum regularly to ensure we include and apply contemporary theories.
- Your employer’s support will help you gain access to a Practice Assessor who will help us assess your progress on the course.
Entry Requirements
- You must be registered with the appropriate professional body in the UK and practising within the UK to be eligible to join the course. This means that we are unable to consider most international applicants.
- You must be currently registered as a 1st level Nurse or Health Visitor on the Professional Register maintained by the Nursing and Midwifery Council.
- You should also have a minimum of 2 years’ appropriate post-registration experience, with the last 12 months specifically in an area of practice where there is an identified need for you to use prescribing skills regularly.
- You’ll become part of a tripartite learning agreement – the other parties are the Trust Prescribing Lead and a qualified Nurse Prescribing Assessor in your practice area.
- You’ll need to arrange to have the support of a qualified, actively prescribing Nurse Prescribing Assessor in practice that will be able to provide guidance and supervision of your practice-based learning whilst you are on the course. The Practice Assessor may be a nurse with whom you normally work, and they must meet specific criteria as outlined on the Nomination Form. Your Practice Assessor will be supplied with full documentation in support of their role.
- You'll also need to achieve the 80% pass mark on the prescribing numeracy test. The test will be arranged by your Trust Prescribing Lead or the University's NMP Programme Leader.
- This course involves regulated activity so you must gain an Enhanced Disclosure certificate from the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) before starting your studies. Charges are payable to cover the cost of the DBS Enhanced Disclosure application and annual registration with the online Update Service. (Normally your sponsoring organisation will organise this.) Please note that your DBS must have been completed within three years of the course start date.
- You may be required to attend an interview and/or provide a portfolio of work.
- Please note that this course is subject to the University of Bolton's Fitness to Practise procedure.
Where changes are made to material information contained in this course description or a decision is taken to suspend a course between the offer of admissions and enrolment, we will inform applicants at the earliest possible opportunity and will outline the various options available to the applicant.
Career Opportunities
If you are a registered nurse or health visitor, completing this course successfully will allow you to take on an active role in community nurse prescribing within your specified area of practice.
Professional Recognition
The course is validated and approved by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).
Upon successfully completing this course, you’ll be qualified as a V150 Community Practitioner Nurse Prescriber (CPNP).
Fees & Funding
Home/EU Fees
Home students starting this course in the first year will be required to pay a Home fee of £800 for the academic year 2024/25.
International Fees
Overseas students starting this course in the first year will be required to pay a Overseas fee of £800 for the academic year 2024/25.
Bursaries
Important note regarding tuition fees for the 2024-25 academic year: EU nationals who meet residency requirements (have settled or pre-settled status) may be eligible for 'Home' fee status. If you do not meet these residency requirements, overseas fees will apply. Irish citizens living in the UK or Ireland will be eligible for 'Home' fee status under the Common Travel Area arrangement. Please read the student finance for EU students web page on www.gov.uk for information.
The fees for a student's course of study will be set for the normal duration of that course subject only to inflationary increases – measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) recorded in March each year to take effect for subsequent start dates.
How to apply
Home Applicants
Please contact the programme leader for details of the application procedure. You can find their name, email address and phone number in the Programme Contacts section of this page.
International Applicants
Please contact the programme leader for details of the application procedure. You can find their name, email address and phone number in the Programme Contacts section of this page.
Teaching & Assessment
This programme adopts a blended learning and teaching style, including online delivery and engagement where appropriate. We employ a range of teaching and learning strategies to maximise your learning potential. You can expect a mixture of lectures, classroom sessions, group work and directed study using learning materials and resources on the University's virtual learning environment, Moodle. We encourage reflective practice, group work, problem-based learning, role play, critical analysis and discussion of major issues relating to prescribing practice.
We developed this programme's learning materials and curriculum in collaboration with other non-medical prescribing HEI programme leaders and tutors based in the North West of England. We continually monitor and update the materials to ensure our learning resources are standardised and of high quality. This ensures that they meet both the professional/regulatory body requirements and the major funding/commissioning body requirements (currently the NHS North West Agency - Strategic Health Authority). You are also required to complete 10 days of practice-based learning and are required to demonstrate competence to prescribe to meet your professional/regulatory body requirement (NMC).
Your competence to prescribe in the context of your own area of clinical practice is verified by a Practice Assessor who is a qualified Nurse Prescriber in clinical practice who prescribes regularly. In addition, group and individual tutorials are timetabled, ensuring you have the opportunity to have at least two face-to-face tutorial sessions per trimester. We will support and encourage you to develop your own resources for independent learning.
Formative assessment will support your learning but will not contribute to your final mark. You'll receive feedback from your tutors and peers that allows you to reflect on your progress and identify what you are doing well and where you may need extra help. Summative assessment tests your achievement of the intended learning outcomes for the course and determines your final mark. For this course, you must demonstrate that you can prescribe medicines safely and effectively for patients within the current legal, ethical, and professional frameworks relating to prescribing practice. You are also required to demonstrate your competency to prescribe within the context of your clinical placement. You will need to provide a reflective log of your learning relevant to prescribing practice within your own clinical setting. Your Practice Assessor will verify your competence to prescribe as a V150 Prescriber in practice.
Modules
The modules listed below may be a mixture of compulsory and optional. You may not have the opportunity to study all the modules shown as part of the course.
- Advanced Diploma in Continuing Professional Development - Preparation of Community Nurse Prescribers (V150)
Assessment methods
| Level | Assessment method |
|---|---|
| Level 1 | Coursework 50% Written exams 50% |
Learning Activities
| Level | Activity |
|---|---|
| Level 1 | Guided independent study 33% Placement/study abroad 38% Scheduled learning and teaching activities 29% |
The university will use all reasonable endeavours to deliver your course as described in its published material and the programme specification for the academic year in which you begin your course. The university considers changes to courses very carefully and the university will minimise any changes. Please be aware that our courses are subject to review on an ongoing basis and changes may be necessary due to legitimate staffing, financial, regulatory and academic reasons. The content of course modules and mode of associated assessments may be updated on an annual basis. This is to ensure that all modules are up-to-date and responsive to employment and sector needs. The published course material and the programme specification contain indicative ‘optional modules’ that may be subject to change due to circumstances outside of our control. For this reason, we cannot guarantee to run any specific optional module.
