Postgraduate Certificate in Non-Medical Prescribing
Description
This qualification is no longer available to new students. You must complete your study by 31 December 2024. If you would like to discuss your options with one of our advisers, please contact us.
This qualification aims to develop the knowledge and skills required for safe, appropriate and effective prescribing practice and enables you to meet the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) competencies within your scope of practice. On successful completion and being awarded the Postgraduate Certificate in Non-Medical Prescribing, you'll be eligible to apply for the annotation to your regulatory register as an Independent and/or Supplementary Prescriber.
Key features of the course
- Gives you a critical understanding of pharmacology, including the pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic effects of medicines and devices.
- Provides an understanding of the implications and management of side effects, contra-indications and adverse drug reactions.
- Understanding of the legislation and ethical frameworks related to prescribing decisions.
- Develops your ability to critically evaluate appropriate investigations, results and data.
- Online teaching delivered by field experts.
Planning your studies
You will need to:
- hold a degree from a UK university or equivalent, or in the case of non-graduates, be able to demonstrate equivalent academic ability and professional experience.
- be a level 1 NMC registered nurse (RN), a pharmacist registered with the GPhC, or an allied health professional registered with the HCPC and satisfy the professional regulatory requirements to enter on to a prescribing programme.
- have a current and valid Access NI (Northern Ireland), PVG scheme (Scotland) or Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) (England) declaration.
- have been deemed competent to safely and effectively practice clinical/health assessments; diagnostics/care management; planning and evaluating care within your proposed area of prescribing practice
- have a supporting organisation which is able to provide governance, learning opportunities and continued service provision.
- have identified an appropriate Designated Prescribing Practitioner (DPP) who has agreed to supervise your learning in practice. For nurses, this is a Practice Supervisor to supervise clinical practice and Practice Assessor to assess clinical practice.
How long study takes
You will need to complete your study by 31 December 2024. The minimum time to complete this qualification is seven months and must be completed within 13 months.
The module includes:
- four online day schools, where your attendance is compulsory. If you begin studying in September 2023, these are scheduled for 6 September 2023, 18 October 2023, 15 November 2023, and 13 December 2023
- six online tutorials (attendance is encouraged)
- 22 days of online directed study.
Achieving less than 100% attendance at the online day schools will mean automatic withdrawal from the course.
Prior learning, experience and clinical exposure will help with the self-directed learning portion, so you may find that you require fewer self-directed hours than that specified here. This is perfectly admissible, but a pass in all summative assessments must be achieved in order to be awarded a pass in the overall module/qualification.
Career relevance and employability
This qualification will allow you to apply for annotation with your regulatory body as an independent and/or supplementary prescriber. It will increase your career prospects by widening opportunities for you and for the further development of services within your organisation.
Currently the independent prescribing programme is aimed at nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, chiropodists or podiatrists, therapeutic radiographers and paramedics. Diagnostic radiographers and dieticians will be eligible to apply for annotation as Supplementary Prescribers.
It is the intention of Government and healthcare organisations, including the NHS, that non-medical prescribing will make better use of the skills of health professionals and contribute to the introduction of more flexible team working.
Modules
To gain this qualification, you need 60 credits.
Compulsory module |
Credits |
Next start |
- Non-medical independent and supplementary prescribing (K803) (now discontinued)
|
60 |
|
Learning outcomes
The learning outcomes of this qualification are described in four areas:
- Knowledge and understanding
- Cognitive skills
- Practical and professional skills
- Key skills
Read more detailed information about the learning outcomes, and how they are acquired through teaching, learning and assessment methods.
Credit for previous study elsewhere
For this qualification, we do not allow you to count credit for study you have already done elsewhere.
On completion
On successfully completing this course, we’ll award you our Postgraduate Certificate in Non-Medical Prescribing. You’ll be entitled to use the letters PG Cert NMP (Open) after your name.
Regulations
As a student of The Open University, you should be aware of the content of the qualification-specific regulations below and the academic regulations that are available on our Student Policies and Regulations website.
How to register
If you want to study for this qualification, read the description and check you meet any specific requirements (for example, some of
our qualifications, require you to be working in a particular environment, or be sponsored by your employer). Then select the
module you wish to study first and ensure it is suitable for you before following the registration procedure for that module.
During the registration procedure you will be asked to declare which qualification you are studying towards.
See a full list of modules available for this qualification