Clinical Pharmacy Practice

Course summary

From new scopes of practice and greater interprofessional collaboration, to changing regulations and service developments, the pharmacy profession is continually evolving to meet the desire for more efficient and effective patient care.

CPD has become crucial to ensure pharmacists — and the profession as a whole — are able to respond and adapt to rapidly changing healthcare systems and needs.

We believe our Clinical Pharmacy Practice (CPP) programme is one of the most flexible learning programmes on offer. Not only does it allow you to tailor your studies by choosing from over 25 different modules, but you can set your own timeframe for study, potentially dipping in and out of learning over five years or working your way up to the MSc in as little as three.

What's more, our CPP programme aims to equip you with the relevant knowledge and skills necessary to develop and extend your professional role - whatever the current level of your career.

Post-registration foundation training may, for example, entail building on your existing knowledge of disease states, pharmacology, pharmacokinetics and therapeutics to enable you to apply this in a clinical setting. We offer clinical modules on Cardiovascular Disease, Infections, Respiratory Disease and Mental Health, for example. We also offer a Foundation Practice Development (FPD) module to enable newly qualified pharmacists to demonstrate achievement of specific outcomes, based on their development needs, of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Post-registration Foundation Curriculum.

Alternatively, you may wish to use the CPP programme to increase your confidence in your ability to contribute to patient care as part of the multidisciplinary healthcare team. Our skills-based modules include Personal Effectiveness and Collaborative Working, Leadership and Change Management, and Education Theory and Practice for Health Professionals, among others.

Students will be encouraged to develop problem-solving approaches to clinical practice: for instance, how to assess drug therapy for effectiveness, safety, compatibility, patient acceptability and cost to make effective, evidence-based interventions and optimise prescribing practice.

Depending on whether you work within the hospital sector, community pharmacy or primary care, you can select specialist modules focusing on pharmaceutical care in relation to Critical Care and Parenteral Nutrition, Hepatic Disease, or Women's Health.

The CPP programme provides a structured, yet highly flexible learning programme that will help you apply new knowledge and skills in daily clinical pharmacy practice. The written assessments for each module are designed to test the application of your learning to your professional practice. For example, you might critically evaluate your pharmaceutical care of a patient, plan a change to implement in your workplace, evaluate the effectiveness of your workplace team, or plan a learning event in your workplace.

Keele University has become known within the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector for delivering effective, highly flexible continuing professional development (CPD) and lifelong learning for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, paramedics and other health care professionals. For over 20 years more than 5,000 students have completed our CPD programmes, which tie in with the relevant Royal Pharmaceutical Society frameworks, such as the Advanced Pharmacy Framework or Prescribing Competency Framework (in the case of the IP module) and Post-registration Foundation Curriculum.

Capitalising on our strong links with the National Health Service (NHS) and other industry employers, we ensure that all of our courses are regularly reviewed by specialists in practice.

We also purposefully minimise the impact for your employer: you will not need to be released from work to study and do not need to attend the University in person, unless you choose to study the Independent Prescribing Course, which requires attendance at four on-campus study days and two online study days. Furthermore, all of the supervision, academic and personal support you need to succeed will be provided by the University.

Our CPP programme is structured around individual credit-bearing modules, you can accumulate postgraduate credits from every module you successfully complete. You can choose from several study pathways (fixed or flexible) to receive staged interim awards: the Certificate in Clinical Pharmacy Practice (60 credits), followed by the Diploma in Clinical Pharmacy Practice (60 credits). Once you have achieved Diploma level and have been awarded 120 postgraduate credits, you can register for the three additional modules that lead to the full MSc.

All of our courses require an English language qualification or test. For most students, this requirement can be met with a 4 or C in GCSE English. Please see our English Language guidance pages for further details, including English language test information for international students. For those students who require an English language test, this course requires a test from Group D.

Your career

Health agencies across the UK, including the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK and NHS England, all agree that pharmacists and pharmacy technicians need the knowledge, clinical skills and behaviours required to provide more patient-centred care.

The NHS in particular is committed to meeting the challenges of a growing and ageing population with the next generation of pro-active, preventative health care, education, advice and treatment. It wants pharmacy professionals to: embrace new ways of working as part of multidisciplinary healthcare teams in GP practices, care homes and urgent care settings such as NHS 111; deliver better and safer services to patients and the public; and help ensure value from the NHS’ investment in medicines.

Our CPP programme is designed to allow you choice and flexibility in your progression to Certificate, Diploma and the Master's award, to meet your specific professional development needs and advance your professional practice. As such, it can be a core part of supporting your learning during your post-registration foundation training and in advancing your practice as your career progresses.

The clinical and professional modules we offer aim to equip you with the knowledge, skills and confidence to develop and extend your clinical and professional role as part of a multidisciplinary health care team. If you go on to achieve the Professional MSc, the specialist research skills you learn also provide a strong foundation for pursuing further study at doctoral level and you could progress to our Professional Doctorate.

Keele is recognised nationally as a centre of excellence for postgraduate education delivered by distance learning. Our programmes are highly acclaimed by students, employers, purchasers and external course assessors for their structure, content and end value in relation to service, professional and career development.

Positions may include:

• Academic
• Community pharmacist
• Consultant pharmacist
• Enhanced services community pharmacist
• GP pharmacist
• Hospital specialist pharmacist
• Prescribing pharmacist
• Primary care pharmacist