CPD Masters Certificate of Professional Development: Advanced Paediatric Pharmacy Practice

Provides clinical knowledge and skills that are relevant to the needs of healthcare professionals working with medicines in advanced paediatric practice and to facilitate professional development, including fostering development of an enquiring, open-minded attitude, tempered with scientific discipline for paediatric medicine, which encourages lifelong learning.

See a taster of the course structure, platform and contents.

After completing the course you should be able to:

Demonstrate knowledge of advanced neonatal and paediatric conditions and understanding of medicines use in those conditions, including advanced practical aspects of paediatric care
Assess and manage the particular safety issues and pharmacological care relating to paediatric therapy for some advanced paediatric specific conditions
Demonstrate commitment to continue to advance your own and others’ knowledge and understanding in paediatric pharmaceutical care and document continuing professional development in the field and develop a critically reflective approach to practice applied to real patient cases

The final award is Continuing Professional Development in Advanced Paediatric Pharmacy Practice, 20 credits at Level 7.

You will have access to LJMU's virtual learning environment Canvas and online library resources. Programme content is regularly updated on Canvas, including contemporary reading lists and references to journal articles. You will be assigned a Personal Tutor for support and guidance throughout the programme via email or online tutorials. You can also access the Module Leader via phone contact or email.

The course features a variety of teaching approaches chosen to meet the stated learning objectives, including:

• Online lectures
• Online practical cases
• Pre-reading materials
• Quizzes
• Webinars
• Work-based examples

Tutorials: You will guide the contact time with your distance learning tutor as directed in your learning contract. It is recommended that you attend the introductory webinar and to arrange, as a minimum, monthly contact time with your tutor throughout the course.

Formative online and in-class tests: Online self-assessment questions will test your knowledge throughout the course.

Course topics

The programme covers a wide range of topics relevant to contemporary practice involving the use of medicines in children and neonates. You will be given background information, a set of objectives and appropriate directed study activities for each topic. A mixture of teaching and learning activities will be used to enrich the content and facilitate development of lifelong learning skills.

The topics below are indicative of the areas covered in the programme (to be reviewed on an annual basis):

• Allometric dosing: suggest paediatric dosage regimes in the absence of evidence
• Estimation of renal and hepatic function and dose adjustments
• Paediatric clinical trials
• Paediatric post-operative care
• Diabetes and diabetic ketoacidosis
• Advanced paediatric respiratory conditions: Cystic Fibrosis
• Advanced Paediatric Gastroenterology: Enteral and parenteral feeding
• Introduction to palliative care
• Advanced Care of the Neonate
• Treatment of common toxicities in children
• Advanced paediatric infections: meningitis and sepsis, antimicrobial stewardship and multiresistant infections
• Advanced dermatology: psoriasis

After completing the course you should be able to:

• Demonstrate knowledge of advanced neonatal and paediatric conditions and understanding of medicines use in those conditions, including advanced practical aspects of paediatric care
• Assess and manage the particular safety issues and pharmacological care relating to paediatric therapy for some advanced paediatric specific conditions
• Demonstrate commitment to continue to advance your own and others ' knowledge and understanding in paediatric pharmaceutical care and document continuing professional development in the field and develop a critically reflective approach to practice applied to real patient cases

Course length

The study mode is part-time distance learning using LJMU 's virtual learning environment Canvas and lasts for 6 months. No attendance is required as all study is web-based.

Acquisition of knowledge and skills are achieved mainly through directed student-centred and work-based learning. The course is designed to give a degree of flexibility in student choice. The learning outcomes associated with these student-selected topics are achieved through open learning with you selecting the most appropriate resource material as applicable to your area of practice around the world. References and guidance for resources will be available on Canvas and you are supported to identify relevant documents as applicable to your practice.

Qualification requirements

• Alternative qualifications considered

  Students entering the programme must be a registered Pharmacist with the relevant professional body in the UK, or with a professional body recognised to be of similar standing to the UK regulator bodies.

  Where English is not your first language, we would normally require a score of 6.5 in the IELTS system (or equivalent), with scores of greater than 5.5 in each of the domains. This is to ensure that you are able to complete the necessary reading, communication with the programme team and assessments, which must all be completed in English. There may be some exceptions to this requirement if you are from a majority English speaking country or you have completed studies in English language in the UK or another English speaking country, in which case, a recent high school diploma or equivalent course title may be sufficient.

  Students must be working in an environment that will provide sufficient access to paediatric patients to provide opportunities to develop skills in applying knowledge to real-life cases and collect evidence for the professional practice portfolio. This may include placements, provided that the placement provider can confirm that sufficient access/involvement in care will be possible during the placement and that the placement duration is of sufficient length to allow full development of the relevant skills. The suitability of the access you have will be assessed by the programme team prior to admission, but guidance can be obtained prior to application by contacting the programme administrator.

  Pre-requisites/Suggested targets for 7211CPPHAR Advanced Paediatric Pharmacy Practice

  Desirable pre-course requirements:

  7211CPPHAR Fundamentals to Paediatric Pharmacy Practice or equivalent qualification (SNAPP package: Introduction to Paediatric Pharmaceutical Care), or equivalent time (1 to 2 years) in a post with continuous paediatric care contact time.

  The competencies included in the module/programme have been chosen to be suitable to the following range of pharmacy practitioners:

  • Primary Care Practice Pharmacist with a specialist paediatric interest
  • Secondary Care Pharmacist working with paediatric patients in a district general hospital Trust with significant (more than one year) previous paediatric exposure
  • Secondary Care Pharmacist working with paediatric patients in a specialist paediatric trust with significant (more than one year) previous paediatric exposure

To apply for this programme, you are required to complete an LJMU online application form. You will need to provide details of previous qualifications and a personal statement outlining why you wish to study this programme.

Complete the supplementary application form.

Complete the online application form, taking note of the below:

• Select the course that you would like to study from the drop-down menu – ensure that you choose the correct course (Advanced Paediatric Pharmacy Practice), entry point (March or September), and year
• Ensure that you have provided details of your professional qualification and any other university qualifications (note, A-Level and GCSE/equivalent qualifications do not need to be listed)

Upload the following documents to your online application:

• Certificate(s) for any qualifications listed in your application
• A copy of your IELTS certificate (if English is not your first language and you have not recently completed a university level qualification in English)
• A copy of the Purchase Order authorising payment of the course from your place of work

Please note: all documents must be attached to your application within 24 hours of submission – if you wish to attach documents after this date, please email them to: PBS-Office@ljmu.ac.uk

Application deadline

The closing date is Monday 20 January 2025.

Please note that six places are available on this course.

The course has been mapped against some Advanced Stage I and Stage II competencies as detailed in the Professional Curriculum for Neonatal and Paediatric Practice framework developed by the NPPG (Neonatal and Paediatric Pharmacist Group).

Successful completion of the course will include 2 pieces of coursework (a patient care plan and a critical reflection piece) based on work-based cases to demonstrate the ‘know how' and ‘does' skills and a critically reflective approach to practice.

You will have an opportunity to provide a formative patient care plan (month 3) prior to submitting the summative care plan to gain feedback from your tutor.

This CPD can be studied within the MSc Advanced Healthcare Practice (Clinical) award framework or as a single CPD.