Masters of Science in Physiotherapy (Pre-registration)

at University of Bolton United Kingdom

If you’re looking for a postgraduate course that exactly matches your strengths and ambitions then your search is over. The University of Bolton's MA/MSc Professional Practice (Specialism): Extended allows you to design your own master’s degree. We’ll help you personalise your postgraduate education by combining the disciplines that matter for your future. This bespoke course will support you to gain a combination of academic, analytical, and employment-focused skills that will prepare you for a career in your chosen professional area, as well as provide a sound basis for doctoral-level study.

Supporting your choices
Working with our expert tutors, you can choose two modules from across the whole spectrum of master’s level modules available at the University of Bolton. You’ll also be supported to devise a master’s-level dissertation or major project that develops your research and critical thinking skills and allows you to demonstrate your expertise. We’ll counsel you as you make these choices to ensure you create a coherent programme of study – one that is achievable and that will support you to develop the skills and knowledge you seek. We offer a wide range of subjects and you can choose modules from a single area or from two different disciplines, depending on your interests, prior qualifications and experience.

Capture essential employability, transferable and business skills
Alongside your subject-specific studies, you’ll have the opportunity to build the essential employability, transferable and business skills you need to compete with confidence for your dream job or build your own successful business from the ground up. You’ll focus on developing the skills that are most valuable to you as an individual, as shaped by your prior learning and future plans. We’ll guide you to explore areas such as influence and impact, self-management, creativity and innovation, and professional identity, bringing in business and psychological concepts to enhance your development as a professional.

Focusing on your future
We want to help you gain the skills and self-belief to showcase your worth in your chosen field. We’ll guide you to explore and understand the postgraduate labour market in the sector you wish to join, preparing you to apply your new knowledge, attributes and experiences so that you can satisfy and impress your stakeholders (such as employers, clients, commissioners and funding bodies). We’ll help you learn about the recruitment methods used by different types of organisations in your field, explore your personal brand and self-positioning, and prepare for recruitment and selection or self-employment. In addition, we’ll support you to develop skills in commercial ability and acumen, networking and professional relationship management, as well as strategies for career maintenance and growth.

Tried and tested research-informed coaching
Throughout the programme, we’ll use tried and tested, research-informed coaching and training methods to support your development. These will range from postgraduate-level skills in research, critique, problem-solving, professional presentation and synthesis to interpersonal and business-relevant skills such as innovative thinking, team working and project management, the effective use of technology, public speaking and professionalism. All this knowledge will be tailored to your chosen employment context to help you achieve your vision for your future.

An ideal course for graduates and professionals in a wide range of areas
This course should appeal to (but isn’t limited to) graduates and professionals in areas such as art and design, accountancy, science, engineering, business management, film FX, performing arts, community development and youth, computing, games, construction, law, crime and criminal justice, early years, education, English and creative writing, mathematics, nursing and the caring professions, media, psychology, the humanities and sport.

Would you prefer to complete your course over a different timeframe?
We also offer this course full-time over 12 months or part-time over 24 months. For details of the 12-month course, please visit our full-time MA/MSc Professional Practice (Specialism) course search web page. Alternatively, to find out more and apply for the 24-month course, please visit our part-time MA/MSc Professional Practice (Specialism) course search web page.

Highlights

• Dr Selva Pankaj, the author of ‘Thinking into Character – A Proven Methodology for the Creation of Success & Self-Fulfilment’, is a valued partner of the University whose work will support you in the development of business and career planning, confidence and knowledge.
• This course allows you to focus on one subject or to combine two areas of interest to follow an interdisciplinary route. When you successfully complete the master's, your degree title will be chosen to reflect the focus of your studies.
• Our highly qualified and professionally experienced staff have strong links with many economic sectors, offering opportunities for industry masterclasses and lectures, joint projects, and networking.
• The University of Bolton offers a host of world-class facilities across our campus and faculties. Depending on your choice of modules, you'll be able to make use of our specialist facilities to support your studies.
• This MA/MSc is part of the University of Bolton’s ‘Career Development Masters’ suite, which offers shared modules designed to give you a wider business perspective, including tax self-assessment, invoicing, intellectual property and risk assessments, as well as knowing how to start a business and to take advantage of opportunities for enterprise development.

Key Features

• Teaching and supervision are delivered by dedicated staff chosen for their expertise and experience in fields relevant to your areas of study and professional development needs.
• We offer an engaging programme of visiting speakers and practitioners that gives you opportunities to network with and learn from industry professionals.
• We'll offer you opportunities for interdisciplinary work and collaboration.
• Your studies will culminate in your Professional Dissertation, an independent and substantial piece of research that will further your knowledge and practice. This will demonstrate your mastery of an aspect of your field, showcasing your expert knowledge to employers as well as forming an ideal preparation for doctoral-level studies should you to wish to pursue a PhD.
• Your final master’s degree title will reflect your specialist areas of study (please note that the final award title will be selected in agreement with the University within the parameters specified in programme documentation). If you have chosen two specialist subject areas with equal weighting, the title will reflect both specialist subject areas; for instance, MA Professional Practice Creative Writing and Computing. If one of your specialist subject areas has a greater weighting than the other, the word ‘with’ will be used instead of ‘and’ between the two subject areas; for example, MA Professional Practice Creative Writing with Computing.

Almost every business or organisation uses some sort of system to keep things working efficiently and productively. This system might keep information moving securely and efficiently, or it might ensure product distribution or service availability. A systems engineer is the all-important link between complex programming and technology, and its users, customers and stakeholders. So, you’ll need a firm knowledge and understanding of both sides, and the ability to take a joined-up approach to ensure systems meet a wide range of needs reliably, efficiently, and in a user-friendly fashion.

That might sound like a tall order, but it’s a hugely rewarding career path, and this course is a great opportunity for you to develop a unique blend of practical engineering and management-orientated learning. We’re here to help you further specialise your systems engineering knowledge and skills, and completing this course successfully should make you highly employable in a range of sectors and settings.

The course meets professional institution standards in the UK and Europe and addresses a range of contemporary issues in engineering and engineering management. If you’re looking to take a systems-based approach to engineering management, this course is could be ideal.

Highlights

• This programme is a collaboration between the University of Bolton and South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences in Germany. It allows you to spend one of your three semesters of study in Germany and receive two awards, one from each University.
• We’ll support you as you develop a systematic knowledge and understanding of how advanced engineering concepts and design methodologies apply in the design of mechatronics-based equipment.
• We’ll encourage you to develop a mastery of digital signal processing for use in control applications.
• You’ll have the chance to explore advanced artificial intelligence techniques used in the design and control of automated machinery.
• We’ll work to help you develop a detailed understanding of how ‘total quality management’ applies to design, manufacture and project management.
• You’ll have the opportunity to learn about the commercial side of project management, including contract negotiation, stakeholder management, quotations, procurement and a range of other financial and legal matters.

Key Features

• The course is designed to meet professional institution standards in the UK and Europe.
• We’ll encourage you to undertake a work placement and/or an industry-based project.
• You can also choose from two alternative pathways: Mechanical or Electronics Systems Engineering.
• You can select common systems modules, whichever pathway you take.
• For this three-semester programme, you’ll normally study semester 1 at the University of Bolton, UK and semester 2 at South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences, Soest, Germany. The third semester, which is largely devoted to project work, is normally undertaken at the University of Bolton.

Aligned to the Final Year ACCA programme, our MSc in Accountancy and Financial Management is designed to support your career development in business, accounting and financial management roles. It offers the finance, accountancy and broader management knowledge that can be central to success in many private and public sector industries.

Our dedicated, highly qualified and experienced team will lead you in an exploration of the principles and practice of financial management and accounting, the context in which they operate, and how they are managed. We’ll support you to learn the applied skills involved in financial reporting and financial management, as well as wider management issues such as corporate and social responsibility, business ethics, risk and business strategy, financial performance, and taxation/auditing.

You’ll be encouraged to explore research methods, giving you the chance to gain an understanding of a range of research tools and analytical techniques. This knowledge will be of value when you undertake your Master’s dissertation – carrying out a substantial piece of research on an accountancy or financial management issue will enhance your critical and investigative skills, and could benefit your professional practice, too.

Highlights

• You’ll have the opportunity to focus on the global competitive environment, with topics including performance management, ethics, social responsibility, and strategic management accounting.
• Students with a good honours degree in business or accountancy can enrol in optional modules that could enhance your employment prospects.
• You’ll be encouraged to develop a critical awareness of the principles and techniques needed for effective financial decision making.
• Your studies will provide you with the opportunity to evaluate existing empirical research, evaluate and apply theoretical concepts, and think critically and creatively.

Key Features

• Our small class sizes – up to a maximum of around 20 students – give you the chance to benefit from direct and personal guidance from our experienced teaching staff.
• By learning from case studies, and being encouraged to use mathematical and statistical techniques to solve business and accountancy problems, you could benefit in professional situations.
• All our tutors have a masters, PhD or professional accountancy qualifications, as well as considerable teaching and professional experience.

Business management qualifications open doors and are considered essential whether you are looking to pursue a career in business, or achieve higher levels of responsibility in your current work.

Our BSc (Hons) in Business Management (Enterprise) offers a strong grounding in an essential range of contemporary business management subjects combined with the opportunity to focus your studies in the final year. When you successfully complete the course you’ll also receive the CMI Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management.

By studying core modules that are common between all our BSc (Hons) Business Management programmes, you’ll be exposed to key concepts in areas such as business law, leadership and people management, marketing, strategic management, information systems and big data, project management, finance, innovation and enterprise. This solid foundation will support your advanced studies into specialist areas that support entrepreneurship, such as e-commerce and marketing practice, company law, and financial reporting for management.

Developing your employability is a key focus of this dynamic and flexible programme. Real-life case studies, guest speakers and industry visits are designed to help you to understand the business environment and the needs of employers in local, national and international contexts. We’ll support you to develop sought-after skills such as communication, data analysis, time management, team working and problem solving.

We also aim to help you develop lifelong learning skills so that you can take ownership of your professional development for the future, maximising your potential for success.

Highlights

• Our team of highly knowledgeable and enthusiastic business management lecturers offer face-to-face sessions and one-to-one support, ensuring you can access help and advice when you need it.
• On successful completion of this dual award course you’ll receive both an academic degree and a professionally-recognised management qualification – the CMI Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management. You don’t need to take extra exams or coursework to achieve the Diploma – we combine our degree module and CMI assessments streamlining your route to both qualifications.
• This course is part of our Business Management suite of degrees. All students study the same modules at the first two levels of the course to gain an in depth knowledge of the major business disciplines. At Honours level, you can follow the specialist pathway in Enterprise, choose to transfer to one of our other specialist pathways in Law, People Management, Supply Chain, Finance, Marketing or Retail, or follow the core Business Management route.
• Face-to-face sessions and one-to-one support is offered by our team of highly experienced and enthusiastic lecturers who have worked in a wide range of businesses ranging from multinational organisation to SME’s.
• The University offers excellent 24/7 library and IT facilities, WiFi, and well-appointed learning areas.

Key Features

• This course is offered within our vibrant Institute of Management environment in Bolton town centre.
• We use small group and tutorial teaching, so you have the opportunity to benefit from the excellent support offered by our teaching staff.
• We regularly invite guest speakers who hold senior positions in industry and practice, enabling you to benefit from their knowledge and advice.
• Course materials are available online, allowing you to prepare work at home and make the most of the highly interactive in-class tuition.
• Contemporary research findings are woven into our teaching. We offer a robust academic underpinning to your studies of business management.
• Our dedicated team will support you as you develop critical thinking and research skills and apply these during your final year dissertation.

Business management qualifications open doors and are considered essential whether you are looking to pursue a career in business, or achieve higher levels of responsibility in your current work.

Our BSc (Hons) in Business Management (Supply Chain) offers a strong grounding in an essential range of contemporary business management subjects combined with the opportunity to focus your studies in the final year. When you successfully complete the course you’ll also receive the CMI Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management.

By studying core modules that are common between all our BSc (Hons) Business Management programmes, you’ll be exposed to key concepts in areas such as business law, leadership and people management, marketing, strategic management, information systems and big data, project management, finance, innovation and enterprise. This solid foundation will support your advanced studies into specialist areas including logistics and operations, supply chain and information management.

Developing your employability is a key focus of this dynamic and flexible programme. Real-life case studies, guest speakers and industry visits are designed to help you to understand the business environment and the needs of employers in local, national and international contexts. We’ll support you to develop sought-after skills such as communication, data analysis, time management, team working and problem solving.

We also aim to help you develop lifelong learning skills so that you can take ownership of your professional development for the future, maximising your potential for success.

Highlights

• Our team of highly knowledgeable and enthusiastic business management lecturers offer face-to-face sessions and one-to-one support, ensuring you can access help and advice when you need it.
• On successful completion of this dual award course you’ll receive both an academic degree and a professionally-recognised management qualification – the CMI Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management. You don’t need to take extra exams or coursework to achieve the Diploma – we combine our degree module and CMI assessments streamlining your route to both qualifications.
• This course is part of our Business Management suite of degrees. All students study the same modules at the first two levels of the course to gain an in depth knowledge of the major business disciplines. At Honours level, you can follow the specialist pathway in Supply Chain, choose to transfer to one of our other specialist pathways in Law, People Management, Enterprise, Finance, Marketing or Retail, or follow the core Business Management route.
• Face-to-face sessions and one-to-one support is offered by our team of highly experienced and enthusiastic lecturers who have worked in a wide range of businesses ranging from multinational organisation to SME’s.
• The University offers excellent 24/7 library and IT facilities, WiFi, and well-appointed learning areas.

Key Features

• This course is offered within our vibrant Institute of Management environment in Bolton town centre.
• We use small group and tutorial teaching, so you have the opportunity to benefit from the excellent support offered by our teaching staff.
• We regularly invite guest speakers who hold senior positions in industry and practice, enabling you to benefit from their knowledge and advice.
• Course materials are available online, allowing you to prepare work at home and make the most of the highly interactive in-class tuition.
• Contemporary research findings are woven into our teaching. We offer a robust academic underpinning to your studies of business management.
• Our dedicated team will support you as you develop critical thinking and research skills and apply these during your final year dissertation.

Professional recognition

• Graduates of the BSc (Hons) Business Management (Supply Chain) pathway will receive a Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management from the CMI (Chartered Management Institute).
• The Level 5 Diploma is the CMI’s benchmark qualification and offers the quickest exemption route towards Chartered Manager (CMgr MCMI) status. Chartered Manager status is only awarded by the CMI and is the highest status that can be achieved in the management profession.

The market value of the UK games industry was approximately £5.7 billion in 2018, with over 37 million people playing games in the UK*. If you are seeking a career in a strong sector of the economy, then games is an excellent choice. From PC, console and mobile games, through serious games for education and training, to the emerging virtual reality games market, software developers are seeking highly qualified games specialists.

Our Games Design course offers a broad study of games, with an emphasis on the technical, design and innovation aspects, rather than programming. Key topics include content production, games and level design as well as platforms and technologies. Our dedicated games team will work to help you develop skills in games analysis, usability and playability testing and understand the concepts underpinning games production and the business of computer games (for instance sales and marketing).

Team-based projects involving regular critique sessions with your peers and members of our games team are designed to help you develop the high-level of team working and communication skills that are vital in the games industry. Our intensely practical, hands-on approach aims to encourage and support you to develop a high-quality portfolio of work ready to demonstrate your skills and creative flair to potential employers.

Highlights

• We share your passion for games. As well as extensive experience playing games (just like you!), our dedicated games tutors offer a vast range of industry experience, a wide network of contacts in the games industry, and knowledge of the latest games research and developments.
• Industry experts from the leading games studios in the UK, along with Bolton graduates now successful in the sector, are regularly invited to give guest lectures on aspects of games development.
• Team working and collaboration are essential for games industry success, so we encourage you to work with students from our Games Art and Games Programming courses forming interdisciplinary teams to complete games projects.
• Our Game Jams are great opportunities to build your social network and practice your communication, project management and problem solving skills.
• We work with games development companies on games usability and software testing, giving you the opportunity to test games before they go to market. In the past, some of our students have even got their names mentioned in the credits.

Key Features

• University of Bolton games graduates have been enjoying careers in the games industry for longer than most – we were one of the first UK universities to offer games courses.
• The course covers both 2D and 3D game environments, concepts and mechanics for traditional gaming (PC and console), mobile gaming (cloud, social and casual), and virtual reality gaming, along with game play analysis and testing.
• We offer opportunities for you to go on studio visits and field trips, undertake work experience with relevant studios, and network with professionals.
• The assignments and projects set on the course are based on industry pipelines and standards to give you a real feel for a career in the games sector.
• Our well-equipped, dedicated games labs feature high-specification PC hardware, HTC Vive VR systems and industry-standard software, along with modern and vintage consoles.

Social work is a varied and rewarding profession centred on people. It offers careers working with children, young people and adults, supporting families, care leavers and older people, as well as those with mental health issues, learning difficulties or physical disabilities. As a social worker, you’ll work in multidisciplinary environments alongside professionals from other agencies, such as housing services, the police and health and social care teams, to empower individuals, families and communities within society.

Our MA Social Work focuses on helping you learn to use your professional judgement and build relationships, both with the individuals and communities you serve as well as with colleagues from other professions and services. Our passionate and knowledgeable staff will support you to develop the sound knowledge of social work theory, models, legislation, policy, ethics and interventions that will underpin your professional decision-making. We’ll cover areas such as the impact of injustice, demography, and social inequality, as well as safeguarding and the signs of harm, abuse, neglect and exploitation. We’ll guide you as you gain key skills, values and behaviours including professional curiosity, inter-personal and communication skills, initiative, leadership, research and critical reflection, partnership working, self-care and resilience, record keeping, and workload management.

Our focus is on preparing you to become a confident, highly competent, compassionate and professional social worker. On successful completion of this qualification, you’ll be able to use your professional expertise to work, assess, plan, implement, evaluate and intervene putting the needs of people first, and ensuring their voice is central to decision making. You’ll be ready to maintain professional and ethical standards while supporting positive change in people's lives in order to improve their wellbeing and independence.

Highlights

• The University of Bolton’s MA Social Work is approved by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). On successful completion of this programme, you’ll be eligible to apply for registration with the HCPC as a Social Worker.
• You’ll gain first-hand work experience and have the opportunity to develop an invaluable network of professional contacts during your two work placements. You’ll undertake a first-year placement of 70 days and a final year placement of 100 days. Placements are available in a diverse range of social work areas, helping to prepare you for the changing environments you’ll encounter during your career.
• We offer 30 skills development days that focus on helping you learn specific skills, such as interviewing families, communicating with children, family group conferencing, solution-focused approaches, ‘clarifying, probing and challenging’, resilience for practitioners, case recording and giving evidence in court.
• We’ll help you develop an awareness and appreciation for differing cultural values and behaviours, the factors that influence our journeys from pre-birth through to death, and the effects of age, sexuality, gender identity and expression, capacity, learning ability and physical ability. You’ll also be encouraged to recognise how your own values and experience influence the judgements you make.
• Our professional expert academic tutors come from a wide range of professional and academic backgrounds, including social work and a number of allied health and social care professions. They weave essential knowledge of inter-professional and multi-agency working into their delivery of the theory elements of the course, helping prepare you to work effectively with colleagues from a variety of other professions and agencies.

Key Features

• Our programme offers 200 days of practice-based learning opportunities. We’ll arrange two work placements for you totalling 170 days, and you’ll benefit from an additional 30 skills development days that take place on campus.
• Throughout the course, specialists in the field of social work, other key allied health and social care practitioners, senior managers and policy makers will be invited to join us as guest speakers. You can also expect to meet service users and carers who have direct experience of services and who can offer their unique and valuable perspectives on the role of social workers in the community.
• Our dedicated team will guide you as you develop critical thinking and research evaluation skills and apply these during your independent master’s-level project. This experience will support your on-going professional development in future and help you evaluate evidence to inform your practice and decision-making in the field.
• Social work can be very demanding and carries a lot of responsibility so we’ll support you to learn strategies and techniques that can help you to build your professional and emotional resilience and successfully manage the situations you face.
• On successful completion of this programme, you’ll be awarded an MA in Social Work from the University of Bolton.

Professional recognition

• This programme is approved by the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).
• On successful completion of the programme, you’ll be able to demonstrate that you meet the standards of proficiency required by the Health and Care Professions Council and professional capabilities for qualifying social workers. You’ll be eligible to apply for registration with the HCPC as a Social Worker.

Understanding how the human body works – and the need to continuously develop and improve ways to diagnose and treat disease – is integral to improving both the length and quality of our lives. Medical biology is therefore a huge and vital topic. This is your opportunity to take great steps into the subject and develop an understanding of its key principles, concepts and applications. As well as teaching the human biology aspects of medical biology, we’ve designed the course to demonstrate key principles and advancements relating to the medical technology, biotechnology and pharmaceutical job markets.

Early in the course you’ll have the chance to familiarise yourself with the fundamentals of human biology from molecular to organ level. Our dedicated and expert team will also introduce you to the principles of scientific investigation that relate to medical biology. As you progress, you’ll build on these themes in a range of ways, taking a medical perspective on disease and treatment.

The course aims to help you develop skills that will be of value should you wish to apply for the GAMSAT, BMAT and UKCAT medical school entrance exams. It’s also designed to help you develop strong communication and problem solving skills, quantitative and scientific reasoning, and gives you the chance to gain experience using a wide variety of relevant biomedical instrumentation.

Highlights

• You’ll explore the causes of disease, and the methods and technologies used to treat and diagnose disease.
• This highly practical course focuses on developing your practical skills, and knowledge of research methods, by giving you experience of using equipment in our high-spec instrumentation laboratory.
• We’ll also support you to gain skills in critical thinking, problem solving and communication that are highly valued in the biosciences and medical industries, and beyond.
• Many of the areas you’ll explore benefit from University staff research, so you’ll have direct access to in-house expertise, and the latest ideas and learning as they present themselves.
• The course includes a framework through which suitable work placements can accrue credit towards your degree, allowing you to gain work experience in a career-relevant environment and build your network of industry contacts. If you’re interested in a placement, we'll work with you to identify and approach suitable placement providers.
• We offer a warm and friendly environment, with relatively small class sizes, purpose-built teaching and laboratory facilities, and excellent student support and library services.

Key Features

• Our Biological Sciences courses are placed in the UK’s top 15 for teaching quality by The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2020.
• We’re based in the Queens Specialist Building, which offers modern teaching laboratories and classrooms, plus a high-spec instrumentation laboratory, microscopy facility, microbiology laboratory and tissue engineering suite, all dedicated to undergraduate teaching.
• You’ll have opportunities to explore medical biochemistry, molecular genetics, medical microbiology, cancer biology, neurobiology, clinical examination skills and tissue engineering.
• We prefer to keep lecture and practical classes relatively small, so that you have plenty of opportunities to ask our friendly, supportive tutors for help, as well as benefit from the ideas and support offered by your classmates.
• By inviting experts in specialist areas of biology to give guest lectures and provide an overview of their research and professional experience, we aim to enhance your learning and help you to make contacts in the industry.
• We spoke to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, as well as the NHS, while designing the course, to ensure that our graduates gain the knowledge and skills these industries need.

Professional recognition
You can become a Student Affiliate member of the Royal Society of Biology.

The BA (Hons) Learning, Teaching and Assessment in Professional Practice (Top-up) provides a valuable way to use your existing qualifications and knowledge to obtain a degree at the University of Bolton. You’ll have the chance to study a balanced combination of current educational policy and issues, and draw in relevant aspects of sociology, philosophy and psychology. It’s a great opportunity to explore in-depth some of the key current issues affecting education in the UK and abroad.

By thinking about how we learn, we’ll guide you in an exploration of how formal learning, alongside acquired knowledge, shapes our lives, interests and value structures. We’ll also encourage you to research and analyse a range of educational practices, reflecting on your own and others’ experiences of education. This will help you think critically about teaching, learning and assessing and how education is perceived and received.

Highlights

• This course offers you the opportunity to use your existing qualifications and knowledge to obtain a University degree by completing only one year’s extra study.
• Small class sizes mean more keenly focused attention on your learning needs and strategies for success.
• Our experienced professional and approachable tutors will guide and support you throughout your course, delivering online sessions and offering attentive one-to-one support.
• You’ll be studying at a University known for its supportive atmosphere, and get to study alongside students from a variety of backgrounds, each with an individual and unique perspective on education.

Key Features

• You’ll have the chance to take on a systematic and reflective study of education that’s illustrated and informed by the diversity of teaching and learning approaches in different sub-sectors of education.
• You’ll reflect on your current roles and responsibilities to build on the experience you’ve gained in educational settings and learn from the learning and teaching you’ve observed.
• Our teaching draws on your own experiences of learning as a starting point for understanding the formal educational process. You’ll be expected to contribute to research and discussion through critical reflection on your own education and by listening to the experiences of others.
• On successful completion of this course, you’ll be awarded the BA (Hons) Learning, Teaching and Assessment in Professional Practice from the University of Bolton.

MSc Physician Associate Studies has a limited number of places available. Please note, that the closing date for applications is Monday 1 June 2020 for the September 2020 intake of this programme.

The physician associate (PA) is one of the newest allied medical professions and presents a unique and exciting route to clinical care for graduates. Physician associates play a key role working as part of a multi-disciplinary team alongside doctors, nurses and the wider health care team to deliver care to patients of all ages. As a physician associate you’ll take medical histories, perform clinical examinations, order and interpret test results, take part in clinical reasoning and diagnosis, and develop evidence-based patient management plans.

Working in partnership with local NHS Trusts, our experienced and dedicated academic staff will support you to achieve clinical learning and skills development. We’ll guide you as you gain the theoretical knowledge that underpins the physician associate role, and integrate this knowledge into your practice during your clinical placements.

Initially, you’ll focus on developing a thorough understanding of the academic knowledge that underpins the physician associate role. We’ll also support you to gain core clinical skills, developing your confidence and practical knowledge in the safe confines of our state-of-the-art Clinical Simulation Suites, before you’re exposed to primary and secondary care environments and practice through short placements.

In the second year, you’ll have longer clinical placements in these areas, as well as gain experience in emergency care, paediatrics, mental health, and obstetrics. As a graduate, you’ll have competence in the core clinical skills of the physician associate, and possess practical experience of health care procedures ready for a career in this demanding and rewarding profession.

Highlights

• This course offers the high-level of clinical knowledge and skills needed to achieve certification as a physician associate (PA) in the UK. To qualify to practice you’ll need to pass the National Certification Examination run by the Faculty of Physician Associates at the Royal College of Physicians (FPARCP) and enrol on the Physician Associate Managed Voluntary Register (PAMVR).
• Developed in response to employer-led demand for the physician associate role in the Greater Manchester area, this course offers you the opportunity of qualify to work in medicine as part of a multi-professional team in just two years.
• You don’t need prior experience in health care or health and social care qualifications to join this course – we also welcome applications from graduates in areas such as biology, chemistry, engineering, psychology and other social sciences so long as you have some prior higher education knowledge of human biology, and areas such as infectious disease, public health, molecular science or cell biology.
• You’ll have access to facilities in the flagship £31 million Bolton One building, including our state-of-the-art Clinical Simulation Suites where you’ll be able to practice skills and develop knowledge using clinical equipment and simulators.

Key Features

• Our teaching team includes expert clinicians who are working in current practice in addition to supporting and teaching students on the course. This ensures your clinical learning is at the cutting edge of practice.
• As well as in-class learning, simulated clinical experience and real-life clinical practice, this course includes time dedicated to supporting and preparing you for your first National Certification Examination.
• Your highly-structured academic studies will be complemented by personalised work-based learning offered through placements in various clinical areas in primary and secondary care facilities.
• Your Clinical Tutor will act as an advocate during your work-based placements, supporting you, your mentor and your assessors to agree on appropriate workplace activities that support your learning goals.
• You’ll gain first hand clinical experience and have the opportunity to develop an invaluable network of professional contacts during your extensive time on clinical practice placements in Greater Manchester and Lancashire.

Professional recognition

• Physician associate courses in the UK are not currently subject to formal accreditation; however, this is likely to change in the very near future. In anticipation of this change the course will meet the Royal College of Physicians Faculty of Physician Associates draft accreditation standards.
• All students will be registered with the Faculty of Physician Associates at the Royal College of Physicians (FPARCP).
• On completion of the programme and passing of the National Certification Examination, you’ll be required to register on the Physician Associate Managed Voluntary Register (PAMVR) held by the FPARCP. This will incur an additional cost.