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PGDip

Community Specialist Practitioner

Attendance

Campus

Start

Duration

1 Year

Start

September 2023

Delivery

Campus Taught

Build on your experience and skills as a community nurse or midwife with our Community Specialist Practitioner postgraduate, Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC)-approved course.

Why study with us

The course is 50% theory, delivered at our main Preston Campus, and 50% practice via a placement.
You’ll study the key principles of care and programme management, clinical practice development and leadership to meet the diversity of community health and social care needs in a changing climate.
And you’ll benefit from an expert course team who are all qualified in their field, holding relevant NMC registration and active in publishing their work.

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What you'll do

The course meets the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) professional standards for specialist community practitioner (General Practice Nursing or Community Children's Nursing or Nursing in the Home) (UKCC 2001) and the 'Standards for Approval of Higher Education Institutions and Programmes' (ENB 1997).
You’ll acquire lifelong, independent learning skills through reflection, critical reading, problem-based activities, directed study, lectures, discussion groups, role play and eLearn (a virtual learning environment).
Fifty percent of learning will take place within a practice placement.

Please note modules will vary depending on your chosen pathway

Module overview

Course delivery

Following the pandemic, we have found that some courses benefit from a blended learning and teaching approach. Therefore, the majority of your teaching will be face-to-face on campus aside from a small amount of online teaching where we have learnt it works best.

95%Face-to-face

5%Online

Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of our published course information. However, our programmes are subject to ongoing review and development. Changing circumstances may cause alteration to, or the cancellation of, courses. Changes may be necessary to comply with the requirements of accrediting bodies or revisions to subject benchmarks statements. As well as to keep courses updated and contemporary, or as a result of student feedback. We reserve the right to make variations if we consider such action to be necessary or in the best interests of students.

Join us on campus

Book a place at our Undergraduate Open Day on Saturday 17 June. Here you'll be able to explore our campus and facilities, meet academic staff & chat to students.

Book your place

View the course facilities

Academic expertise

Accreditations

This course is validated by the NMC, the nursing and midwifery regulator for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Future careers

Successful completion of the Community Specialist Practitioner course means you’ll be on record as a community specialist practitioner on the Nursing and Midwifery Council register.

You’ll be assessed in a number of ways including by examinations, essays, presentations, business reports, and practice assessments.

You’ll study the equivalent of six standard modules, totalling 120 credits, of which all 120 credits must be at Level 7.

Everyone takes modules in: Principles of Public Health and Social Policy (20 credits); Introduction to Postgraduate Research (20 credits); Leadership in Practice (20 credits); Community Specialist Practice in Perspective (40 credits).

If you’re studying Community Nursing in the Home you’ll also complete an additional, compulsory 10 credit module - V100 Community Practitioner Prescribing.

A further 20 credits of option modules (minimum of 10 credits for Community Nursing in the Home students) is also needed to complete the award.

Access to this course is dependent on a successful application and interview process via two routes.

Internal Recruitment

If you work for NHS you can be seconded by your Trust, and you’ll need to apply via them. Contact your Trust Professional Development Manager for more information. Interviews by the Trust and the University take place over two days each year.

External Recruitment

You can be sponsored by an NHS Trust for which you don’t work too. Please see and apply via the relevant Trust website. These courses are also advertised on the NHS Jobs website.

External interviews take place each year, after internal recruitment has taken place.

The course incorporates the key principles of specialist practice and is grouped into four areas; clinical practice; care and programme management; clinical practice development; and clinical practice leadership.

This course meets the following core Knowledge Skills Framework (KSF) criteria: communication; personal and people development; health safety and security; service improvement; quality; and equality and diversity. Other aspects also meet; health and wellbeing and information and knowledge.