Pharmacy - MPharm (Hons)

Overview

The MPharm programme at Ulster will provide you with an academically challenging and vocationally relevant pharmacy education and training.

Summary

The aim of the MPharm course at Ulster is to educate pharmacy students to a high standard in an environment of modern clinical relevance, thereby facilitating their immediate integration into a forward thinking, healthcare-based profession that practises clinical excellence and understands fully the pharmaceutical principles underpinning therapeutic application of drug substances. The MPharm programme is designed to provide academically challenging and vocationally relevant pharmacy education and training underpinned by appropriate science elements (pharmaceutical sciences) and appropriate professional practice skills (pharmacy practice and patient care).

The MPharm programme offers a modern, innovative, and integrated Masters degree level education in Pharmacy that meets the standards of the University and the requirements of the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) and the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI). The MPharm programme will provide students with the knowledge, understanding, skills and appropriate training required for them to be responsible for the manufacture, safe, legal and professional control, distribution and use of medicinal products. This programme also incorporates detailed studies of all aspects of drug action, design, formulation and use.

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The MPharm course at Ulster University, Coleraine is delivered by the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, ranked top School of Pharmacy in the UK in 2021.With 100% of Graduates in Professional Employment in 2019 and 97% Overall Student Satisfaction in NSS 2019, you will be joining a School dedicated to providing high quality education and support to students. School facilities including specialised teaching laboratories, seminar rooms, a facsimile of a pharmacy shop, a computer suite, a drug information suite, store areas and staff accommodation have all been finished to a high specification for the delivery of the MPharm. MPharm students will also have access to the extensive facilities available to other courses on the Coleraine campus.

This is an exciting and challenging time for pharmacy. The government has introduced many changes that schools of pharmacy must deliver, including graduates with the clinical skills required to allow them to focus on patient-centred clinical care, i.e. to provide a more clinical MPharm. In order to provide high quality education in clinical practice, it recommends that schools of pharmacy increase their practice workforce and have an increased clinical input from practising pharmacists at Ulster.  In Coleraine, we will achieve this by delivering a course that will provide a sound and comprehensive knowledge base developing into the clinical and professional practice of pharmacy. Appropriate module content will be delivered by practising pharmacists, so that our students will be learning from both knowledge and experiences.

We will integrate as many of our students as we can into the profession from the start. There will be placements within all years of the course during pharmacy practice and clinical skills modules, to allow students to see in practice, both in hospital and community, what they are learning about in the classroom. This will promote the professional attitudes and behaviours expected of practising pharmacists. In addition, in some modules pharmacy students will be taught alongside students from other professions, in addition to case study analyses with these students, resulting in the valuable experience of interprofessional education.  The hospital clinical placements will be delivered by clinical Teacher Practitioners based in Trust hospitals in Northern Ireland, while the community placements will be provided by independent and multiple community pharmacists within Northern Ireland. During these placements, students will be provided with portfolios to develop their learning skills, including lifelong learning and reflective and personal development skills.

The focus on providing a practice-based format to our teaching is illustrated in the staff competencies within the School three pharmacy practice lecturers have all come from a practice background rather than an academic one, so their experience in the practice of pharmacy is evidence and experience based. In addition, the further development of practical experience is facilitated by developing partnerships with the employers in the region, so that students who wish to seek part-time employment, will be assisted in taking up this employment within their chosen profession from the start. This initiative has been named the Pharmacy Job Shop.

In the MPharm at Ulster University, the course team have produced an exciting, dynamic course that will meet the needs of the students, prospective employers and the pharmacy profession as a whole; resulting in graduates who have both the knowledge and social skills to begin their pharmacy career as competent junior pharmacists who are fit to practice. The integrated nature of the programme, where teaching is carried out within therapeutic areas, allows students to develop an understanding of 'Molecules to Man' - the journey of a drug compound from discovery and development, through formulation and drug delivery, to therapeutic treatment, clinical outcomes and patient-centred care.

The course content is subject to change as it moves towards meeting the GPhC Initial Education and Training Standards for Pharmacists, 2021. Students entering first year in September 2022, will be transferred onto the new curriculum when they enter second year in September 2023.

Careers & opportunities

Graduate employers

Graduates from this course are now working for:

• National Health Service
• Community pharmacy
• Pharmaceutical Industry
• GP Federations

Job roles

With this degree you could become:

• Community pharmacist
• Clinical pharmacist
• Primary Care Pharmacist
• Industrial pharmacist
• Medicines Information pharmacist
• Academic pharmacist
• Pre Registration Pharmacist

Career options

Following successful completion of the MPharm programme, graduates will enter a Foundation Training year, following successful completion of which they will be able to register as a pharmacist.

The future role of pharmacists lies in meeting patients' needs through working closely with patients, other healthcare professionals, the National Health Service (NHS) and the industry. Pharmacists are the only healthcare professionals with a unique knowledge and understanding of medicines from manufacture to their applications in patients, encompassing discovery and development, manufacturing, quality assurance, distribution, therapeutics, management and monitoring.

Qualified registered pharmacists can choose careers from a number of available options including healthcare provision in the high street (community pharmacists), clinical pharmacy duties and outpatient clinics (hospital pharmacists), running disease management clinics in GP practices (practice-based pharmacists) and pursuing medicines research in industry or academia. Pharmacists can also be prescribers, which allow them to care for all patients' drug-related needs following medical diagnosis.

In summary, the career options for qualified pharmacists include hospital, community, primary care and industrial practice, general management and administration as well as research opportunities in industry, academia, or government laboratories. Opportunities are also available for MPharm graduates to enter into MRes and MPhil/PhD programmes.

Work placement / study abroad

The MPharm course at Ulster has periods of work placement within each year of study, during the Professional Practice Skills modules. Placements take place within community pharmacies throughout Northern Ireland, and within the Health and Social Care Trusts. Hospital placements are suported by the Northern Ireland Teacher-Practitioner Network. Short placement visits also take place to Nicobrand and Norbrook Pharmaceutical Industries. All placement experiences allow students to develop their skills and comptencies in the practice of pharmacy from the theoretical setting on campus, to the contextual and experiential learning achieved within the employed sectors. Students are responsible for their own travel arrangments to and from placement.

These short term placements involve:

Year 1 - 2 days in community pharmacy and 1 day in hospital pharmacy

Year 2 - 2 days in community pharmacy, 5 days with the hospital teacher-practitioner network, and 1 day visit to Norbrook

Year 3 - 3 days in community pharmacy, 5 days in hospital pharmacy and 1 day visit to Norbrook

Year 4 - 4 days in community pharmacy, 1 day with practice-based pharmacists, 5 days in hospital pharmacy

Placement opportunities are subject to change as the course moves towards meeting the GPhC Initial Education and Training Standards for Pharmacists, 2021

Professional recognition

Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI)

Accredited by the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI) for the purpose of registration with that body.

General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC)

Accredited by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) in order to progress to pharmacist pre-registration training and then to register as a pharmacist.

Next steps:

1. find your course
2. check you meet the University’s General Entrance Requirements and any course-specific requirements
3. if your first language is not English, check you meet the English language requirements for your given course