Advanced Community Nurse Specialist Practitioner, PGDip - Degree Apprenticeship

Tuition Fees are paid by funding through NHS England or Apprenticeship Levy, depending on the choice of course. This means that you as the learner do not pay the standard tuition fee rates.

Please be aware that students on Degree Apprenticeships do not qualify for any funding from Student Finance.

Job roles

• District Nursing
• Community Childrens Nursing
• General Practice Nursing
• Community Palliative and End of Life Care Nursing

Specialist practice qualifications are annotations on the NMC register. They indicate that a registered nurse has successfully undertaken an NMC approved SPQ programme that meets NMC standards in a particular area of practice.  

Community Nurse Specialist Practitioners are highly trained to deliver and lead effective, safe, and responsive nursing care across a wide range of health and care settings.

In this role, you will model leadership values and behaviours within teams and collaborate with senior leaders of organisations to implement policies, ensuring compliance with legislative boundaries in the workplace. 

You will work with people of all ages and communities across numerous organisations and settings, such as

• Primary care
• Social care
• Third-sector organisations
• Hospitals (including mental health)
• Hospices
• Prisons
• Community services

We have extensive array of learning resources both on and off campus.

For those off campus, our resources include:

• Electronic resources including e-journals and e-books
• Search by Subject guides to help access journals and books, etc
• Online access to other libraries and information services (perhaps closer to home) through local and national schemes.
• Inter-Library Loans Service
• Information Skills training programme
• Access to IT help and advice from LIS Customer Support
• The Remote Access services allow students to access their network account, the library's electronic resources and some core software applications from their own computer as if they were on-campus.

The qualification comprises of 120 credits which are mixture of lectures, seminars, tutorials, practical sessions and independent study. Independent study is an important aspect of the course. The exact combination of study time is detailed within your module descriptors.

Both theory and practice elements of the course will be assessed throughout the duration of the programme using a mixture of:

• Written essays
• Reports
• Posters
• Presentations
• Examinations
• Observation of practice

The course encourages students to become independent learners who are self-motivated and fosters the adoption of a self-directed approach to the management of your studies.

The course requires you to take 113 theory days. Of these 113, this will include 59 taught days and 54 directed study days.

Within the taught days some time will be spent in class, the rest of the time is allocated for independent study.

The apprenticeship will develop key skills, including continued development of English and Maths. Apprentices without level 2 English and Maths will need to achieve this level before taking the End-Point Assessment. For those with an education, health and care plan or a legacy statement, the apprenticeship’s English and Maths minimum requirement is Entry Level 2.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) require that those training to become a community nurse specialist practitioner are already registered nurses on Part 1 of the NMC register.

You can register with the government Find Apprenticeship Service to receive updates on all Degree Apprenticeships.