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Clinical Pharmacy Practice with Research Project MSc

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

    If you are an overseas pharmacist who is currently practising in your respective country and want to enhance your clinical and research expertise and gain hands-on experience of pharmacy practice research in the UK.

    This degree offers a unique blend of knowledge and training with hands-on research experience adapted for the most popular career pathways in the pharmacy profession. As part of the course, you will also carry out a pharmacy practice research project.

    This course is not a replacement of OSPAP program for overseas pharmacist. Those who wish to register and practice as a pharmacist in UK should follow GPhC guidelines at

    Key Information

    Entry requirements

    Entry requirements for this course are normally:

    • A minimum of a second class honours degree in Pharmacy or its international equivalent
    • Current registration with the relevant regulatory authority to practice as a Pharmacist in any jurisdiction
    • A letter confirming good standing from a relevant body under which you have worked, prior to your application
    • At least 3-months relevant work experience before starting the course

    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 less than 6.0 in reading and writing, or equivalent. Read more about the University’s entry requirements for students outside of the UK on our International Entry Requirements page.

    Start dates

    22 September 2025

    Duration

    1 year full-time

    Course Detail

    Applied Therapeutics

    This module will focus on the application of an integrated knowledge base to inform decision-making and problem-solving of issues regarding pharmaceutical care of individual patients. It will have a strong focus on problem solving and pharmaceutical care planning whilst also introducing a variety of therapeutic areas and their management. Students will develop and apply their clinical pharmacy and critical evaluation skills to a variety of patient cases and commonly encountered scenarios.

    Clinical Pharmacy Practice

    This module introduces students to the practice of clinical pharmacy, the role of the clinical pharmacist in society and their role as a member of the healthcare team and highlights issues related to Health and Illness. Students are introduced to the dispensing of medicines with respect to the underpinning skills, pharmaceutical legislation and ethics. Students will be introduced to the concept of self-care, differential diagnosis, consultation, prescribing skills, medicine usage reviews, medicines reconciliation, emergency care, and palliative care. Simulated experience in the dispensary will provide students a real-life model environment to become familiar with the practice of clinical pharmacy in the UK.

    International Practice and Policy

    This module provides students an in-depth understanding of international practice and policies underpinning the practice of pharmacy around the world and critically appraises the differences in practices in developed world to those in low and middle-income countries. Students will also appreciate the pharmacoeconomics underlying introduction of a new drugs and treatments, pharmacovigilance, and economic evaluation of community and hospital pharmacy services. The module also provides and overview of information sources used in international pharmacy practice and in-depth appreciation of systemic reviews and meta-analysis.

    Formulation Design and Development

    The aim of this module is to provide an in-depth appreciation of all the stages from new drug identification to bringing a drug to the market and beyond, with an emphasis on biotechnology-based products. It is divided into two integrated streams, the first being drug design. You will gain a critical appreciation of drug design and methods of discovery. Drug development will include pre-clinical, clinical and post-marketing surveillance aspects. The incorporation of advanced drug delivery strategies into current practice and future directions will be covered in detail. You will be expected to integrate and apply your knowledge and skills in the development of your own formulation supported by representatives from the pharmaceutical industry, and should be able to test the quality and performance of developed formulations in the laboratory.

    Drug Design and Development

    An introduction to precision medicine including pharmacogenomics, which will be extended to an in-depth appreciation of how genetic variations are inherited and can be applied to pharmacogenomic analysis, i.e. how genetic variations affect human drug response and how this area will become an essential component in developing new medicines. The module will also explore the application of biomarkers to stratified or personalised medicine. Both pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics influences of drugs will be covered, such as inter-patient variation in the expression of drug metabolising and activating enzymes, as well as differences in the expression of drug targets such as receptors, genes, enzymes and growth factors. Biometric analysis such as bioinformatics will be explored through the understanding of the development of the Human Genome Project (HGP) and its relevance to ‘-omic’ technologies (genomics, proteomics, and transcriptomics). In addition, different model systems that are used to identify and develop biomarkers and drug target identification will be covered. The module will use a series of lectures, workshops and tutorials to encompass these topics and areas of learning. This will involve several expert lectures including external consultants and scientists.

    Research Methods in Pharmacy Practice

    Pharmacy practice is rapidly transforming and it is vital for students, practitioners and academic researchers to understand and employ relevant techniques and methodologies but also to champion, nurture and develop the field. This module provides students with an in-depth understanding of contemporary methodologies in pharmacy practice research. It includes a range of quantitative, qualitative, action research and mixed methods employed in pharmacy practice research in the modern era.

    Pharmacy Practice Research Project

    This module includes a major piece of research in pharmacy practice and therefore integrates learning across various modules in the course. The module will highlight the concepts, philosophy and ethos of using research to provide evidence of best practice. Students will be offered projects related to the research of the academic staff and/or of pharmacy practitioners working in collaboration with staff on a variety of pharmacy practice aspects. Students will gain an appreciation of the use of literature searching and how their review of this literature generates and consolidates a hypothesis. Students will design their research study, collect their own data, and provide their own interpretation to generate a discussion of their results. This will be submitted in the form of a written report. In addition, students will also present their work in conference style presentation.

    You will gain significant practical experience and confidence whilst studying on this course as you will be exposed to simulated and real-life situations.

    You will also be shown how to use various IT resources in a pharmacy, and various clinical information resources used in a clinical practice.You will also have access to online resources on academic/scientific writing and additional support from Academic Skills Tutors if required.

    Considerable emphasis is placed on guided independent learning. Modules are assessed by a combination of a piece of course work, clinical case studies, role play and practical assessments to ensure you are able to undertake the tasks as required, and by an end of module test.

    On average 35% of the study time on this course is spent with your tutors (either face to face or online) in lectures, seminars, tutorials etc.

    1. Our teaching staff rank first in England for the proportion with higher degrees and teaching qualifications, as well as being top five for those holding doctorates (HESA 2025). So you’ll learn from some of the best, helping you to be the best.

    2. We are second in the country for National Teaching Fellowships, which mark the UK’s best lecturers in Higher Education, winning a total of 24 since 2008 (2025 data).

    3. We won the first Global Teaching Excellence Award, recognising the University’s commitment to world-class teaching and its success in developing students as independent learners and critical thinkers (Higher Education Academy, 2017).

    Visit ‘Our experts’ page where you’ll find in-depth profiles of all our academic staff

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    Important information

    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 if you are unhappy with the change 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 being unable to teach due to illness, where they have a particular specialism that can’t be adequately covered by other members of staff; or due to pandemics, other disasters (such as fire, flood or war) or changes made by the government.

    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 consult with affected groups of students and any changes would only be made in accordance with our regulations. 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 let us know before the change takes effect you can cancel your registration and withdraw from the University without liability to the University for any additional tuition fees. We will provide reasonable support to assist you with transferring to another university if you wish to do so and you may be eligible for an exit award depending on how far through your course you are.

    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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