Clinical Pharmacy MSc/PG Dip/PG Cert

Course Structure

Certificate Year

• Medicines Optimisation in Practice, 15 credits (nine months, studied across the whole of the certificate year)
• Fundamentals of Clinical Practice, 15 credits (three months)
• Applied Therapeutics 1, 15 credits (three months)
• Applied Therapeutics 2, 15 credits (three months)

Students leaving after year one will receive a Postgraduate Certificate in Clinical Pharmacy. The above is a suggested configuration of modules for the Certificate Year.

Diploma Year

There are a number of different modules on offer in the Diploma Year. They are:

• Applied Therapeutics 3, 15 credits (three months)
• Clinical Pharmacists in Primary Care (three months)
• Clinical Pharmacists in Secondary Care(three months)
• Public Health, 15 credits (three months)
• Quality improvement, 15 credits (three months)
• Implementation of a Quality Improvement Service (3 months)
• Deprescribing in Mental Health (three months)
• Management of Poly Pharmacy in Clinical Practice (three months)
• Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Stewardship (three months)
• Fundamentals of Leadership and Change Management (three months)
• Concepts in Research, 15 credits (three months) (three months)
• Professional Decision Making and Ethics, 15 credits (nine months, studied across the whole of the diploma year)

Students studying this route will receive a Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Pharmacy.

Diploma Year - Optional Route Two

Any 15-credit module from the above list and -

• Independent Prescribing*, 45 credits (six months) - Clinical Pharmacy PG Dip

Please note that the independent prescribing module has a separate entry criteria and admissions process.

Students studying this route will receive a Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Pharmacy.

Masters Year

• Research Project, 60 credits (14 months) - Clinical Pharmacy MSc

Students who wish to study the Masters Year need to study Concepts in Research module, listed under Diploma Route One during their diploma year.

Teaching and assessment

Our distance learning approach is ideally designed for studying at home and in the workplace. Study materials are available online in the DMU virtual learning environment. We suggest you will need to spend about 10-15 hours per week studying the course material and undertaking assessment.

There is some attendance required at the university for UK-based students:

• An induction day, as you start the course, to introduce you to the programme team, the study facilities available to you, the course requirements and patterns of study. Two study days per year, where you will have small group tutorials about the assignments, do some further study in groups, and maybe sit a study day assessment, depending on the module

If you choose the independent prescribing option in the diploma stage this is taught partly by face-to-face teaching at DMU over 7 study days and one assessment day.

Assessments include written reports, clinical interventions, CPD cycles, projects, presentation of patient cases and care plans. If students study the Independent Prescribing module, assessments also include OSCEs, oral examination and a reflective journal.

Academic expertise

We have a dedicated team of staff who contribute to the course. The programme and module leaders are all registered pharmacists, and have experience in the hospital, community, primary care and secure environment areas of pharmacy practice.

MSc supervisors are drawn from the Leicester School of Pharmacy and local community and hospital pharmacists who can support you in your project. We also use a team of expert pharmacists and doctors who contribute to the development of the course material and assessments on the study days.