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Advanced Clinical Practice MSc

2025-26

This course is eligible for Master's loan funding. Find out more.

Start date

22 September 2025

12 January 2026

Duration

3 years part-time

About the course

Reasons to study

  1. Enhancing your knowledge of advanced clinical practice may lead to career progression into advanced level roles across all specialties of practice.
  2. Tailor this course to support your specific clinical practice, through studying either Primary Care, Critical Care, Emergency Care, Mental Health Care or Cancer Care.
  3. You will be taught by lecturers who have a wealth of skills, expertise and professional credibility related to advanced clinical practice.

The development of the Advanced Clinical Practitioner (ACP) role is one of the ways the Government is modernising the National Health Service and reshaping the workforce in order to improve the quality of healthcare and meet the changing needs of the population. Advanced clinical practice is delivered by experienced, registered healthcare practitioners. The role characterised by a high degree of autonomy and decision making in a context of complexity and uncertainty, holding accountability for decisions made.

  • This Health Education England accredited course consists of theoretical and clinically focused modules that enable you to meet the four pillars of professional practice – clinical practice, leadership and management, education and research. As well as associated core capabilities at the level of advanced clinical practice articulated in HEE (2017) Multi-professional Framework for ACP.
  • The course provides theoretical and clinically focused education and training to support the expansion of practice and the development of new skills; specifically, clinical history taking, clinical examination skills and consultation skills.
  • It offers you the opportunity to enhance your current knowledge and practice related to the four pillars of advanced clinical practice and may lead to career progression into advanced level roles across all specialties of practice.
  • You will be taught by a team of passionate academics who have a wealth of skills, expertise and professional credibility related to advanced clinical practice.
  • You will be able to study specific routes to support your clinical practice, these include Primary Care, Critical Care, Emergency Care, Mental Health Care and Cancer Care.

Course detail

Core modules:

Core Clinical Assessment, Skills and Decision-making for Advanced Practice

Situated around the HEE core capabilities for advanced clinical practice, you will study the theoretical principles required to carry out effective assessment, diagnosis and management of undifferentiated and undiagnosed conditions in addition to pre-diagnosed conditions related to body systems. You will explore how to generate differential diagnoses in addition to making informed collaborative decisions about the management of your patient’s presentation. Emphasis throughout the module will be placed on a person-centred holistic approach to assessment with development of management plans from which to provide optimum care.

Fundamentals of Contemporary Advanced Practice

In this module you will explore the four pillars of advanced level practice (clinical practice, leadership and management, education and research). The module will enhance your knowledge and skills in each of the four pillars and enable you to analyse and synthesise these to inform your clinical decision-making and the development of your Advanced Clinical Practitioner role. The module will challenge you to identify how healthcare policy impacts on your area of advanced clinical practice.

Entry requirements

You must hold:

  • Current registration on Part 1 of the Nursing and Midwifery Council Register, Health and Care Professions Council or the General Pharmaceutical Council. A period of 3 years post-registration experience will be required.
  • A first degree in your specialism or another relevant health related subject is also required, or you must provide other evidence of your ability to study at postgraduate level.

If your first language is not English, you will need to meet the minimum requirements of an English Language qualification. The minimum for IELTS is 6.0 overall with no element lower than 5.5, or equivalent. Read more about the University’s entry requirements for students outside of the UK on our International Entry Requirements page.

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Placements


Whilst studying this course, you must be working in a clinical placement within primary or secondary care and will require an educational supervisor and workplace supervisors. If offered a place, you will be required to identify an educational supervisor who will supervise you throughout the course and assess the development of your clinical skills. This placement is usually within your own area of practice.

Student support

At the University of Huddersfield, you'll find support networks and services to help you get ahead in your studies and social life. Whether you study at undergraduate or postgraduate level, you'll soon discover that you're never far away from our dedicated staff and resources to help you to navigate through your personal student journey. Find out more about all our support services.

Important information

Although we always try and ensure we deliver our courses as described, sometimes we may have to make changes for the following reasons

When you enrol as a student of the University, your study and time with us will be governed by our terms and conditions, Handbook of Regulations and associated policies. It is important that you familiarise yourself with these as you will be asked to agree to them when you join us as a student. You will find a guide to the key terms here, along with the Student Protection Plan.

Although we always try and ensure we deliver our courses as described, sometimes we may have to make changes for the following reasons

Changes to a course you have applied for but are not yet enrolled on

If we propose to make a major change to a course that you are holding an offer for, then we will tell you as soon as possible so that you can decide whether to withdraw your application prior to enrolment. We may occasionally have to withdraw a course you have applied for or combine your programme with another programme if we consider this reasonably necessary to ensure a good student experience, for example if there are not enough applicants. Where this is the case we will notify you as soon as reasonably possible and we will discuss with you other suitable courses we can transfer your application to. If you do not wish to transfer to another course with us, you may cancel your application and we will refund you any deposits or fees you have paid to us.

Changes to your course after you enrol as a student

Changes to option modules:

Where your course allows you to choose modules from a range of options, we will review these each year and change them to reflect the expertise of our staff, current trends in research and as a result of student feedback or demand for certain modules. We will always ensure that you have an equivalent range of options to that advertised for the course. We will let you know in good time the options available for you to choose for the following year.

Major changes:

We will only make major changes to non-optional modules on a course if it is necessary for us to do so and provided such changes are reasonable. A major change is a change that substantially changes the outcomes, or a significant part of your course, such as the nature of the award or a substantial change to module content, teaching days (part time provision), type of delivery or assessment of the core curriculum. For example, it may be necessary to make a major change to reflect changes in the law or the requirements of the University’s regulators or a commissioning or accrediting body. We may also make changes to improve the course in response to student, examiners’ or other course evaluators’ feedback or to ensure you are being taught current best practice. Major changes may also be necessary because of circumstances outside our reasonable control, such as a key member of staff leaving the University or being unable to teach, where they have a particular specialism that can’t be adequately covered by other members of staff; or due to damage or interruption to buildings, facilities or equipment, or pandemics.

Major changes would usually be made with effect from the next academic year, but may happen sooner in an emergency. We will notify you as soon as possible should we need to make a major change and will carry out suitable consultation. If you reasonably believe that the proposed change will cause you detriment or hardship we will, if appropriate, work with you to try to reduce the adverse effect on you or find an appropriate solution. Where an appropriate solution cannot be found and you contact us in writing before the change takes effect you can cancel your registration and withdraw from the University without liability to the University for future tuition fees. We will provide reasonable support to assist you with transferring to another university if you wish to do so.

In exceptional circumstances, we may, for reasons outside of our control, be forced to discontinue or suspend your course. Where this is the case, a formal exit strategy will be followed in accordance with the student protection plan.

The Office for Students (OfS) is the principal regulator for the University.

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