MSc Advanced Clinical Practitioner

This degree apprenticeship programme provides health care practitioners with the opportunity to develop the advanced skills necessary to independently manage holistic episodes of physical and mental healthcare in a range of settings including acute, primary and emergency settings (including hospitals, general practice, individual’s homes, schools, prisons, and in the public, independent, private and charitable sectors).

The two year programme, delivered by the School of Health Sciences, uses a work-based model of learning with 20% of the learning taking place at university; one day per week (Off the Job Training), and 80% (On the Job Training) in the workplace. The apprentice will be allocated a university liaison academic tutor who will support them in both environments, and also ensure effective communication occurs between apprentice, university and employer.

The programme is mapped to the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) Standards for Advanced Clinical Practitioner, and also aligns with the Multi-Professional Framework for Advanced Clinical Practice (HEE, 2017) so that it includes the four pillars of: clinical practice, leadership and management, education and research, as well as providing opportunities to develop core capabilities and clinical competence related to a specific area of work. Campus delivery has been designed so that the apprentice will have a truly interprofessional educational experience, through modules delivered by Nurses, Physiotherapists, Occupational Therapists, Diagnostic Radiographers, Therapeutic Radiographers, Psychologists and Orthoptists as well as through learning within a multidisciplinary cohort.

In order to map to the ESFA Standards for Advanced Clinical Practitioner Apprenticeship there is a requirement of 140 credits of mandatory modules with the remaining 40 credits being taken as optional modules in years one and two.

View programme modules here (word document).

Please note, prior to acceptance, any candidate interested in completing the non-medical prescribing modules at the University of Liverpool will be required to attend an interview conducted by the module leader and a service user. A review of each potential candidate’s practice learning environment will also be conducted prior to acceptance on the module.

Language requirements:

Whilst we do accept IELTS qualifications, we do not accept IELTS qualifications that have been sat and gained online. We only accept qualifications that have been sat and gained in person.

Read about the experience of one of our current apprentices:

"I became a qualified Learning Disability Nurse in 2009 and have worked in the NHS since. I applied for the ACP course because I have a passion for improving services, and practice-based leadership. As a nurse I feel I can never have enough knowledge and I knew that the ACP course would help me develop my clinical skills, whilst also allowing me to straddle the boundaries across multi-professional frameworks.

To date the programme has taught me how to do this within my scope of practice, it has allowed me to identify and enhance my knowledge of how I can support improvements in services using evidence-based practice using as an advanced scope of clinical application. Since joining the ACP programme I have been able to move away from operational management via career progression into the quality team, as my passion for improving standards grown with my newfound knowledge, which also prompted me to apply as a Specialist Advisor in my field of nursing for the health and social care regulator."