Overview

The module will enable you to develop relevant knowledge, skills, attitudes and competencies required for post registration foundation practice and to apply your learning to develop your professional practice/services. The focus of the module and the content is driven by you, with the support of an academic tutor/supervisor. You will work with an academic tutor/supervisor to complete a learning needs analysis and agree a learning contract that will focus on your attainment of specific outcomes for your personal professional development.

You will link your learning to current professional standards and produce evidence of achievement of your chosen outcomes. Studying this module, therefore, will support you to complete post registration foundation training.

This module can be completed prior to an independent prescribing course, to gain and demonstrate relevant knowledge and skills in the non-prescribing outcomes or to help you prepare for the prescribing course.

Module aims

To enable the development of the relevant, knowledge, skills, attitudes and competencies required to demonstrate achievement of specific outcomes of the RPS post-registration foundation curriculum.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this module you should be able to:

• Critically evaluate and reflect on your practice and the required standard of post registration foundation practice in order to complete a learning needs analysis and develop a professional development plan
• Demonstrate that you have met the required standard of post registration foundation practice by completing your professional development plan

Entry requirements

Applicants must be registered with the General Pharmaceutical Council, or equivalent for pharmacist working overseas, and be working full or part-time in a patient facing role.

Normally, only applicants with the minimum of a second class degree classification (or equivalent for applicants from outside the UK) in Pharmacy will be accepted onto the programme without interview. Exceptions will be considered on a case-by-case basis. The University reserves the right to interview prospective students and take up academic references. The final decision in any case rests with the University. 

Our stand-alone credit bearing short courses are open to pharmacists and other practising healthcare professionals, registered with their appropriate professional body, who are in a patient facing role, and who have studied to at least undergraduate degree level, or who have at least 5 years of experience of practising in their field.

CPD short courses, without associated academic credits can be studied by all practising healthcare professionals.

English language proficiency requirement

If English is not your first language, you must either:

• Hold a degree from a school where English was the language of instruction

OR

• Take the IELTS (average of 7.0 with a minimum of 6.5 in all categories).

Please note that IETLS exams must be no more than two years old at the start of the course for which you have applied.

English language proficiency requirements are not applicable to students studying the module without academic credits as a CPD short course.

Module content

This module will be directed by you under the supervision of a Keele tutor/supervisor. Since this module allows you to focus on an area of your professional practice that you have chosen, your portfolio (see Assessment) will be produced around learning outcomes, content and activities that are specific to your individual needs.

You will be provided with an induction to the module which will focus on using competency frameworks to help you develop your personal learning outcomes for the module. You will be assigned a tutor to support you in this module. You will initially ‘meet’ with your tutor either via phone call or Webinar, to discuss your initial ideas and then finalise the learning outcomes shortly after, normally by e-mail contact.

Teaching and assessment

The assessment consists of a professional development portfolio. The portfolio will consist of the following elements:

1. Critical evaluation and reflection on practice and the required standard of post registration foundation practice to complete a learning needs assessment.

2. Learning contract and personal development plan (PDP) – you will agree specific learning outcomes linked to your development needs with your academic tutor/supervisor. You will agree specific learning activities to meet the agreed learning outcomes.

3. Evidenced reflections on practice and structured learning activities to meet the learning outcomes.