Explore our Advanced Clinical Practice (Critical Care) taught degree.

P-B91O

MSc/PGDip/PGCert

Part-time: 3 years (MSc); 2 years
(PGDip); 1 year (PGCert)

2 October 2023

Warwick Medical School

University of Warwick

Imagine if you had the confidence to react more effectively in a critical care situations. Our course in Advanced Clinical Practice (Critical Care) aims to develop clinicians to undertake autonomous practice within critical care environments such as ITU or HEMS and will help you to feel confident in delivering the best possible patient care. Armed with up-to-date knowledge and skills you will have the opportunity to make a real difference to people's lives.

This course is designed for healthcare professionals caring for critically ill patients and those working within acute, emergency or critical care environments such as ambulance services, intensive care units and emergency departments.

The course promotes a multidisciplinary approach to patient care, and aims to help you develop the skills to undertake autonomous practice. Core modules focus on clinical examination and diagnostic skills, critical care transfer, and independent and supplementary prescribing.

Skills from this degree

The structure of the course will enable the non-medical clinicians to:

• Undertake a full systems examination (child and adult)
• Develop the knowledge and skills to clinically and critically interpret results of tests and investigations.
• Manage an episode of care autonomously

This is an interactive programme. You will learn through lectures and seminars, practical group work and guided reading. You will benefit from guided discussions and have the opportunity to practise the skills you have learnt during the sessions.

Class sizes will vary, however on average they comprise of 20-25 students.

Contact Hours

Assessment for each module can be seen by looking at the relevant module page but typically consists of written essays of 4,000 words each, a clinical portfolio and/or an Objective Structured Long Examination Record (OSLER). The Professional Project is assessed by a 4,000-word project report and a poster presentation.

Reading lists

Most departments have reading lists available through Warwick Library. If you would like to view reading lists for the current cohort of students you can visit our Warwick Library web pageLink opens in a new window.

Your timetable

Your personalised timetable will be complete when you are registered for all modules, listing your allocated lectures, seminars, and other small group classes. Your compulsory modules will be registered for you when you join us.

Applicants should:

• Be in a clinical post at Band 6 or above in a trainee ACP post or similar
• Have current registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council, Health Care Professionals Council or Royal Pharmaceutical Society
• Hold a BSc degree at 2nd class level, or evidence of Level 7 study
• Be 4 years post-qualification/ registration

Those without the academic qualifications will have a telephone interview with the course director for a special case request to be made.

• Band A
• With specific component scores of 6.5 in reading and writing.

There are no additional entry requirements for this course.

For the MSc:

• Postgraduate Induction and Your Professional Development
• Clinical Examination and Diagnostic Skills for Health Care Professionals
• Understanding Research and Critical Appraisal in Healthcare (Distance Learning)
• Independent and Supplementary Prescribing
• Critical Care Transfer
• Professional Project

• Advanced Emergency Practice
• Special Incident Management
• Essentials of Clinical Education
• Introduction to Leadership and Management in Health Care Contexts
• Work-based Learning

Read more about the core and optional modules on the Medical School's website.

We have revised the information on this page since publication. See the edits we have made and content history.

This is a holding content block which does not currently display on the page. To make it live, update the copy above, change the Title to remove the brackets, and delete this sentence.

International qualifications

We welcome applications from students with other internationally recognised qualifications although students will need to be practicing in the UK.

For more information, please visit the international entry requirements page.