Advanced Health Assessment PgCert - Professional courses/CPD

The PGCert in Advanced Health Assessment aims to provide the knowledge, skills and leadership abilities necessary for clinical practitioners to be able to undertake a range of advanced health assessments commensurate with the role of Advanced Clinical Practitioners and integrate positive service developments into their clinical setting.

Location: Aston University, Birmingham

The NHS Five Year Forward View published in October 2014 sets out a positive vision for the future, based around new models of care. Health Education England (HEE) is working to support the development of the workforce that is required to deliver those new models of care. Health Education England working across the West Midlands (HEE WM) is focusing resources on supporting workforce development and transformation in order to ensure the local workforce has the right skills in the right numbers and at the right time to fulfil the future vision for service delivery. It is widely recognised that Advanced Clinical Practitioners have an increasingly important role within the healthcare workforce, particularly considering national supply and skills shortages in the medical and non-medical workforce.

Advanced Health Assessment can be taken standalone or as part of the PgDip in Advanced Clinical Practice (120 credits). Taken together with the Clinically EnhancedPharmacist Independent Prescribingprogramme and Nurse Independent Prescribing (approval pending) programme, AHA covers the Advanced Clinical Practitioner curriculum approved byHealth Education England.

This is a clinical course involving advanced health assessment of patients. You must be prepared to physically examine patients, models and fellow students.

By the end of the course you should be able to:

• Understand the role and responsibilities of an advanced health practitioner; be aware of their own limitations; work within the limits of professional competence; know when and how to refer / consult / seek guidance from another member of the health care team.
• Work effectively within a clinical partnership. Demonstrate a shared approach to decision making by assessing patients needs, taking account of their wishes and values and those of their carers when making clinical decisions. Develop effective communication with patients, carers, other ACPs, prescribers and members of the health care team. Write accurate, effective and timely records to ensure that other health care staff are appropriately informed.
• Recognise, evaluate and respond to influences on clinical practice at individual, local and national levels. Demonstrate an understanding of the legal, ethical and professional framework for accountability and responsibility in relation to clinical decision making.
• Identify and assess sources of information, advice and decision support and demonstrate how they use them in patient care taking into account evidence-based practice and national/local guidelines where they exist.
• Be able to undertake audit and self-audit of their own clinical practice and personal development.
• Demonstrate competence in assessing a range of clinical cases and applying advanced health assessment skills to:
  • Describe the condition being treated
  • Recognise the signs and symptoms of illness
  • Take an accurate history
  • Use relevant diagnostic aids
  • Inform a working diagnosis
  • Formulate a treatment plan
  • Carry out a checking process and manage patients safely, appropriately and cost effectively Monitor response
  • Review the working differential diagnosis and modify treatment or refer

• You must be a registered healthcare professional with an appropriate professional accreditation, i.e. pharmacist with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) or the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI), registered Nurse with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) or an allied health professional registered with the Health Professionals Council (HCPC)
• You must have a minimum of 1-2 years post-registration experience within a patient-facing role.
• You should ideally, currently be employed in a patient-facing role.
• Able to access an appropriately qualified/experienced mentor to support training in practice.

To be accepted onto our programmes, you must be able to satisfy the University's English language requirements. The level required will depend on the programme you are applying for. We strive to make your application process as easy as possible, however in all cases we reserve the right to request an English language qualification and / or conduct an interview.

We accept a wide range of English language qualifications including:

• IELTS Academic
• TOEFL
• PTE Academic
• TOEFL iBT Home Edition
• Password
• Duolingo English Test (for entry onto Pre-Sessional English programmes, and direct entry courses starting in January 2022 and September 2022, excluding Aston Medical School, OSPAP, and Postgraduate Research degree programmes).
• Kaplan International Tools for English (KITE)