Pharmacy MPharm with preparatory year

Becoming a pharmacist

The MPharm qualification is accredited by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), the UK’s independent regulator of the pharmacy profession.

The journey towards becoming a qualified pharmacist has several stages. It involves learning, understanding and demonstrating that you can deliver safe and effective patient-centred care that patients and the public expect from pharmacy professionals.

Foundation training

After your degree, you’ll complete a year of foundation training: paid work in a community or hospital pharmacy where you’ll build a portfolio of evidence and demonstrate your competence whilst being observed at work.

You’ll demonstrate your knowledge by passing the GPhC registration assessment, as well as showing that you have what is required to be a safe effective pharmacist.

Help with your assessment

We stay in touch after you’ve graduated from the MPharm and provide help in the form of mock exam and online support around pharmaceutical calculations. The mock exam is held at the university six weeks before the actual exam so that you can assess your learning, identify gaps in your knowledge and gain confidence. It consists of two papers written in the style of the new GPhC exam.

Finally, you need to meet the fitness to practice requirements for registration as a pharmacist.

The whole process takes at least five years. But after you have completed all of these steps successfully you can apply for registration with the GPhC as a pharmacist.

Prepare for your career

In your career you need a combination of knowledge, skills, personal qualities and relevant experiences – and you’ll get all of this from your degree.

• You’ll use what you learn in lectures when counselling patients or working on patient cases on placements in various settings: a community pharmacy placement, three clinical placements and a week-long placement in a hospital.

• Our close links with a local pharmaceutical company give you the option of studying in an industrial environment in your final year.

• In your final year you will take part in small-group, inter-professional education sessions that simulate real-life clinical scenarios.

Facilities for learning

You’ll have access to specialist labs where you will be able to explore and develop your practical lab techniques, including:

• clinical skills lab
• SimMan 3G – a highly advanced patient simulator that allows you to monitor vital signs, detect numerous signs of disease and assess clinical response to drug treatment in real time
• medicine dispensary
• nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mass spectrometry
• image analysis suite with electron microscopes, a confocal microscope and atomic force microscopes.
• High field NMR
• Time-of-flight high resolution and ion-trap ESI-mass spectrometry
• UV/Vis, near infra-red, mid infra-red, Raman spectrophotometry
• Fluorimetry
• HPLC
• GLC
• Particle size and zeta potential
• Rheometry; Differential scanning calorimetry
• UV/Vis plate readers
• Tablet press
• Dosage form evaluation equipment including dissolution, disintegration apparatus
• Twin stage and multistage liquid impingers
• Texture analysis

Specialist pharmacology equipment

• Ultracentrifuge
• Autoclaves
• Electrophysiology equipment
• Microscopy suite including electron, confocal and atomic force microscopy
• Tissue culture suite
• Histology facilities
• Clinical Skills Laboratory with simulated patient mannequins (SimMan) and clinical dummies (Resusci Anne)

Graduate destinations

Our course will prepare you for all areas of the profession, including community, hospital and industrial pharmacy.

Further study

After qualification and registration, you’ll be expected to undertake regular continuing professional development ensuring that your knowledge and skills stay up to date and relevant, part of the profession’s commitment to lifelong learning. You may also be able to focus on specialist areas of pharmacy.

Supporting your employability

Outside of your course, our Careers Service is here to support you as you discover (and re-discover) your strengths and what matters to you. We are here for you throughout your university journey as you work towards a fulfilling and rewarding career.

Connect with our careers team

• Find part-time work that you can combine with your studies.
• Find, or be, a mentor or get involved with our peer-to-peer support scheme.
• Develop your business ideas through our entrepreneurial support network.
• Get professional advice and support with career planning, CV writing and interview top tips.
• Meet potential employers at our careers fairs.
• Find rewarding volunteering opportunities to help you discover more about what makes you tick, and build your CV.

Whatever your career needs, we are here to help. And that's not just while you are a student, our support carries on after you've graduated.

Find out more about our Careers Service...