Paramedic Science (Pre Registration) MSc

Paramedics are Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) regulated Allied Health Professionals (AHPs), who provide unscheduled care to people who have an urgent or emergency healthcare need out of the hospital environment.

They assess, treat, manage, discharge and/or where appropriate refer service users across the lifespan, with almost any injury or illness (encompassing acute, chronic, and/or specialist services).

This course will enable you to become a self-sufficient registered practitioner who has the knowledge, skills and clinical expertise to deliver safe, effective and appropriate treatment to service users with urgent, emergency, and unscheduled healthcare requirements. This includes management at the scene or in-hospital of critically ill and injured patients.

On successful completion of this postgraduate Paramedic Science degree, you will be eligible to register with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) as a paramedic.

Placements

Practice-based learning is a compulsory component and is integrated across the two years of your course. You will not receive payment for this. You will travel to practice-based learning settings at your own expense and this is an additional cost to the course fee. You will also be responsible for arranging and paying for any accommodation or insurance related to travel to practice-based learning settings. Practice placements are located in London and the outskirts, you should be prepared to travel significant distances to some placement areas.

The structure, duration and range of practice-based learning settings will support your achievement of the course learning outcomes and the Standards of Proficiency – Paramedics (2014).

Placements  will be with both the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust and in a number of wider healthcare settings such as:

• residential care homes, ward areas, hospices
• GP surgeries
• operating theatres and intensive care/high dependency units
• mental health environments
• maternity and children’s services.

Placements with the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust will be based in the North West London sector, which includes five training stations (Brent, Hillingdon, Hanwell, Fulham and Westminster) and ambulance bases at Ruislip, Pinner, Wembley, St John’s Wood, North Kensington, Chiswick, Isleworth, Feltham, Heathrow and Hayes.

Placements will follow compulsory clinical shift patterns and will include unsociable hours including days, nights, weekends and bank holidays.

In ambulance placements you will be supervised by a Practice Educator or PEd. In healthcare placements you will be supervised by a mentor.

You will undertake the following number of practice hours across the 2 years:

• 1,080 hours of ambulance placement (13 weeks in year 1 and 14 weeks in year 2)
• 320 hours of healthcare placements (4 weeks per year)
• 80 hours of Non-Emergency Transport Services (NETS) (2 weeks in year 1)
• 4 weeks of preparation for practice (2 weeks per year).

Total = 1,640 hours

Teaching, learning and assessment

A wide range of approaches to teaching and learning will be utilised during the MSc Paramedic Science, recognising your prior experience:

• technology enhanced learning
• lectures and seminars
• simulated learning
• forum theatre
• service user and carer involvement
• social media
• inter-Professional learning
• practice-based learning
• critical reflection
• critical analysis and synthesis of evidence.

Reasonable Adjustments

We are committed to ensuring people with a disability are provided with equal access to their chosen course of study and facilities at the University of West London. Appropriate support can be provided to remove barriers faced in education because of a person’s disability. This is support is called “reasonable adjustments”. 

We strongly encourage applicants to disclose their disability and discuss support requirements at the earliest opportunity by contacting our Wellbeing Team: online via the Student Hub or by email - wellbeing@uwl.ac.uk alternatively telephone 020 8231 2739. Early disclosure enables the University time to consider the individual support requirements that you may have and to identify whether reasonable adjustments can be made to help you with your studies prior to the start of the course. Some reasonable adjustments may not be possible in a placement setting due to professional standards and core competencies of the role so it is imperative these are considered prior to starting the course. 

It is important to understand that successful progression on this course is dependent on professional standards being met. By disclosing to the University, where reasonable adjustments can be made, the University will provide you with the support you need to meet these standards. See standards of proficiency for allied health professionals to explore the standards appropriate to your chosen course.

Assessment

The module assessments have been designed to enable you to demonstrate the learning outcomes for each module and cumulatively the overall MSc Paramedic Science learning outcomes (meeting the requirements of the HCPC Standards of Proficiency - Paramedics, 2014). They will enable you to demonstrate you are consistently competent and capable of the role, both academically and in real-life complex and dynamic service environments.

They will be spread across the two years providing frequent opportunities for you to receive feedback and feedforward:

• Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCE’s)
• MCQ and short answer exams
• reflective logs
• essays
• rapid systematic review and improvement plan
• presentations
• practice assessment document.