FdA Health and Social Care Assistant Practitioner (Higher Apprenticeship) Part-time

Foundation degree

In Bolton

Price on request

Description

  • Type

    Foundation degree

  • Location

    Bolton

  • Duration

    3 Years

  • Start date

    Different dates available

Our Higher Apprenticeship is suitable for new and existing health and social care support staff who have direct contact with patients, service users or clients, and demonstrate the potential to take on the greater responsibilities and challenges of the Assistant Practitioner role. Offering the best combination of theory and practice, study at the University complements learning in the workplace, supporting apprentices to develop the core skills, knowledge, values and behaviours required to fulfil the role of Assistant Practitioner.

Our flexible programme recognises the wide range of health and social care environments and the specific challenges they pose. We’ll work with you to devise individual learning agreements and job descriptions for each of your apprentices, ensuring they fulfil the core and essential criteria of the Higher Apprenticeship, as well as develop the additional skills and knowledge your organisation requires for the specific clinical or professional area.

This Higher Apprenticeship gives you the opportunity to offer structured training and a nationally recognised qualification in health and social care, helping you attract the best new talent and retain valued support staff through career progression. Studying flexibly alongside work allows apprentices to put their new skills and understanding into practice without delay, benefitting patients and service users immediately. Our focus is on helping your apprentices become knowledgeable, compassionate, and person-centred care professionals.

If you’re looking for undergraduate-level training in this subject area but don’t work for an employer who is offering apprenticeships, please see our related courses section for details of study opportunities that don’t require current employment.

Facilities

Location

Start date

Bolton (Greater Manchester)
See map
Deane Road, BL3 5AB

Start date

Different dates availableEnrolment now open

About this course

Assistant Practitioners have direct contact with patients, service users or clients and work as part of the wider health and social care team to provide high quality and compassionate care. Occupying the crucial gap in care delivery between a care support worker and registered practitioner, the job title of Assistant Practitioner is applied to a very wide variety of roles that have been developed locally by employers to meet individual service need.

Assistant Practitioners can be found working in a range of areas across health and social care, such as acute, social care services, community, physiotherapy, mental health, general practice, hospice care, genito-urinary medicine, orthopaedics, occupational therapy, cancer services, and learning disabilities, as well as in hybrid roles that cross traditional occupational areas.

What Can I Do With This Qualification?
To become an Assistant Practitioner, apprentices will need to demonstrate their mastery of the core knowledge and skills defined by the Higher Apprenticeship standard along with the additional skills and knowledge based on your requirements as their employer. These will depend on the clinical or professional area in which they are working to allow for an integrated approach and skills escalation.

Some of the key transferable skills successful apprentices will possess include communication skills, teamwork, and negotiation, as well as the ability to present ideas and arguments, work independently, and reflect on and review progress.

After successfully completing the Higher Apprenticeship and achieving the Foundation Degree in Health and Social Care (Assistant Practitioner), your employees will be able to progress to the final year of the BSc (Hons) Professional Studies (Health and Social Care) offered by the University of Bolton. Alternatively, they may benefit from stand-alone professional development modules in additional areas of professional practice or interest.

Any subjects are acceptable at Level 3.

Applicants should also have four GCSEs at grade C or above or grade 4 to 9 (or equivalent), preferably including English and Mathematics (see below).

Applicants will be asked to attend a joint interview with their employer and the University of Bolton.

Previous experience may be taken into account if an applicant doesn’t meet the academic entry requirements for the course.

We’ve been offering high-quality courses, specifically designed to meet the needs of the health and social care sector, for over 30 years.
Our dedicated academic team have a wealth of experience working in NHS and social care settings and are engaged in relevant research, bringing their expertise and passion for service excellence to their teaching.
Our approach to teaching and learning is ‘student-centred’, so we’ll work with your apprentices on an individual basis, providing tailored help and support throughout their studies.
Apprentices can benefit from the purpose-built health and research facilities at the £31 million Bolton One centre, here on campus – including our Clinical Simulation Suite.
As they study this course, your apprentices will be encouraged to develop important skills, values and behaviours, such as the 6C’s, action planning, personal impact and confidence, self-awareness, social and ethical responsibility, respect and commitment to quality.
By studying alongside people from other clinical and professional areas of health and social care, your apprentices can benefit from a wider range knowledge and experience that supports multi-disciplinary thinking.
Quarterly and annual reviews, where each apprentice, their workplace mentor and a member of our team meet to assess your apprentice’s progress, promote continuing conversation between your workplace and the University. This helps to ensure the success of your apprentices and maximise the value of their studies to your organisation.

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Subjects

  • Staff
  • Health and Social Care
  • University
  • Part Time
  • Optional
  • Compulsory
  • Opportunity
  • Information
  • Technology
  • Communication

Course programme

Modules

Modules listed below are a mixture of compulsory and optional. You may not have the opportunity to study all the modules as part of the course.
  • Communication and Information Technology
  • Legal and Ethical Issues
  • Introduction to Social Policy
  • Using Evidence
  • Principles of Care
  • Anatomy and Physiology for Health and Social Care
  • Collaborative Health and Social Care
  • Planning Care Delivery
  • Leadership in Health and Social Care
  • Health Promotion - Challenges and Opportunities
  • Mental Health Care, Perspectives and Practice
  • Working With Older People
  • Disability and Society
  • Working With Young People
  • Clinical Skills
  • Therapy Skills
  • Children and Families
  • Introduction to Psychology in Health and Social Care
  • Management of Long-term Conditions
  • Acute Illness Management
  • End of Life and Palliative Care
  • Social Inclusion, Empowerment and Health
  • Negotiated Studies
Teaching, Learning And Assessment

To make this course as beneficial as possible for you and your apprentices, we apply a range of learning, teaching and assessment methods. These are designed to fully engage apprentices, helping them to develop the skills, knowledge, competencies, values and attitudes essential to provide service excellence as a health and social care Assistant Practitioner, with particular reference to their specific clinical or professional area in your organisation. Learning focuses on your workplace environment, and builds the transferable body of knowledge and skills demanded by the Assistant Practitioner role both generally and within your organisation or service area. Your apprentices will spend approximately 80% of their time in the workplace, with the other 20% of their time being devoted to off-the-job training and university learning.

To complement lectures that introduce the course content, seminars and group-based activities allow apprentices to explore subjects, policies and practices in greater detail. Tutorials give them the opportunity to clarify their understanding of the topics we cover in lectures and seminars, while we use case studies, practical scenarios and role-playing to help apprentices apply their newly acquired knowledge and theory to real-life problems, and gain valuable insights into health and social care practice. Apprentices also have the chance to develop their practical skills in our clinical skills laboratory, and we’ll encourage them to use our extensive online learning resources to support their self-directed learning.

In addition, we offer masterclasses with practitioners from the health and social care sector, plus insightful sessions with guest speakers who either provide or use health and social care services to widen their view.

Our assessment methods are designed to reflect what will be required of Assistant Practitioners in your health and social care setting. For example, the course requires apprentices to submit written reports, give presentations, develop their practice portfolio, analyse care plans, review relevant literature, analyse complex cases and discuss how to manage change. We also expect them to write essays and reflective accounts, take practical and written tests, and play an active part in group discussions. Some assessments contribute to their final module marks, while others are designed to help them identify their strengths and weaknesses, and where they needs to seek extra support from course tutors.

Disclaimer

The university will use all reasonable endeavours to deliver your course as described in its published material and the programme specification for the academic year in which you begin your course. Please be aware that our courses are subject to review on an ongoing basis. The content of course modules and mode of associated assessments may be updated on an annual basis. This is to ensure that all modules are up to date and responsive to employment and sector needs. The published course material and the programme specification contain indicative ‘optional modules’ that may be subject to change due to circumstances outside of our control. For this reason we cannot guarantee to run any specific optional module.

FdA Health and Social Care Assistant Practitioner (Higher Apprenticeship) Part-time

Price on request