School of Nursing

PGDip Community Nursing Specialist Practice Qualification (General Practice Nursing)

PGDip Part-time 2 years, Full-time 1 year

Award
PGDip
Start date(s)
8 September 2025,8 September 2025
UCAS Code
Course specifications
Course length
Part-time (2 years),Full-time (1 year)
Campus location
University: City Campus
UCAS points calculator

Why choose this course?

The course aims to develop you as safe, competent and Professional Specialist Community Nurse, fit for practice in the field of General Practice Nursing. On successful completion of the course you will be able to register as a Specialist Practitioner on the NMC register.

 
The course will also:-
  • equip you with the knowledge, skills and understanding to evaluate, enhance and develop your Practice.
  • Develop and enhance your leadership and management skills within the context of Practice Nursing to support others within the General Practice team.
  • enable you to adopt critical reflective practice and lifelong learning that fosters a spirit of scientific enquiry and research promoting personal and professional development.
  • equip you with cognitive skills and knowledge to lead, innovate, advocate change and contribute to an evidence base of practice in order to benefit the health of General Practice Patients.
  • support you to work with codes and standards of professional practice to protect human rights, promote equality and manage risk to deliver safe, effective health care.

What happens on the course?

You are normally sponsored by the NHS Trust to study on this pathway. You will focus on educational issues that are related to Practice Nursing and Primary Healthcare. The course is 50% theory and 50% practice and so learning experiences also take place in the practice . The programme steers strongly towards health promotion, triage and physical assessment and is designed to encourage the empowerment of patients. The theoretical modules are underpinned with evidence based practice and application to practice is highlighted throughout. Other key aspects of the course are inter-professional working, leadership and management and innovation.

The course will involve both assessments in theory and practical elements. Your theoretical assessments involve measuring academic knowledge at Masters level which will underpin your professional practice. Practical assessments are aimed at measuring knowledge, skills, expertise and attitudes to ensure that an appropriate theory/practice balance is achieved.

The modules you will study are:

7NH004 Research and Inquiry in Specialist Practice

7NH012 Specialist Community Nursing Practice General Practice and District Nursing

7NH009 Advanced Perspectives of Public Health and Social Policy in Specialist Practice

7NH007 Health assessment and Examination Skills within Clinical Practice

7NH005 Advancing Practice Through Leadership and Innovation

Course Modules

Potential Career Paths

You will by the end of the course be able to apply to be recorded as a Specialist Practitioners with the NMC.

Additional Information

Everything you need to know about this course!

Students accessing this course are from a wide range of areas from within the West Midlands. Networking between students is encouraged and the extensive support offered to students is considered to be a strength of this course. Students are also visited individually in practice by a member of the course team to provide additional support.

The Practice Nursing course has a designated full time member of staff who acts as a course leader and who has expertise in the specific field of practice that the student is studying and as well as having experience of working as a practitioner in the same specialist area. In addition the award, course leader and course team have engaged in research, published books and journal articles within Practice Nursing.
Innovation on the course is strongly encouraged and Practice Nursing students have won the Innovation Award from the University of Wolverhampton.

On completion of the course you will:

  • Have an understanding of the principles of Specialist Practice including the developments of Practice Nursing.
  • Use theories of research and evidence based information to identify trends in health policy and the implications for health care and services.
  • Help to promote health and wellbeing, influence policies and develop smooth effective health care services through partnerships and collaborative working.
  • Be able to analyse, synthesise, evaluate and present information, constructing rational and logical arguments to support
  • Practice competently and evaluate personal and professional performance as well as being able to organise and lead others.

Students must be NMC registered nurse (level 1) with at least one year’s post registration experience with relevant professional registration, capable of safe and effective practice at the level of proficiency appropriate to the NMC approved Community Nursing Specialist Practice Qualification (SPQ) programme.

Applicants must possess level 2/GCSE at grade C+/4 in an English based subject and math or equivalent. Applicants that do not meet this entry criteria will be signposted to the university’s GCSE equivalency tests. The minimum academic entry requirement is a first degree or the ability to study at academic level 7. •Applicants must provide an employer reference and evidence of either a full-time or part-time post (minimum 30 hours) with an appropriate primary care placement for the duration of the programme with support of the employer to provide the protected learning time to complete the programme. Self-funding and self-employed applicants must provide evidence of a suitable primary care placement for the duration of the programme. Applicants will be required to provide a signed declaration of good health and character signed by applicant and employer, in line with NMC Guidance (NMC 2019), this will be verified by the course lead and the admissions team during admission and recruitment process. Self-employed / self-funding applicants will be given the opportunity of applying for enhanced DBS through the university DBS team (nominal fee applies). As part of the SPQ programme you will be undertaking the NMC approved independent/supplementary (V300) prescribing programme, for this, applicants must have been registered with the NMC for a minimum of one year prior to application for entry onto the SPQ programme. You will also require an experienced prescriber with suitable equivalent qualifications for the programme who is willing to assess you for 90 hours of prescribing practice. Upon application you are requested to complete a Prescribing Entry Requirements form (PER) to verify eligibility. You will also require a practice assessor who is an experienced registered nurse with SPQ qualification to support you throughout the programme (in accordance with Standards for Supervision and Assessment, NMC 2018). You will need to provide the details of the practice assessor which will be verified by the course lead. • Recognition of prior learning (RPL) will be considered on an individual basis as per the University’s RPL guidance and professional regulation Standards for Post Registration Programmes (NMC, 2022).

 

Postgraduate Loyalty Discount:

You can get 20% discount on a taught postgraduate course if you’re a University of Wolverhampton Graduate.

The University offers a generous 20% Loyalty Discount to students progressing from an undergraduate programme to a taught postgraduate on-site programme, where both courses are University of Wolverhampton Awards.

There is no time limit on how long ago you completed your degree as long as this is your first Masters level qualification.

The discount applies to the first year of enrolment only. Students who receive a loyalty discount are not entitled to any further tuition discount or bursary. For full terms and conditions click here.


Self-funded:

If you are paying for the fees yourself then the fees can be paid in 3 instalments: November, January and April. More information can be found by clicking here.


Sponsored - Your employer, embassy or organisation can pay for your Tuition fees:

Your employer, embassy or organisation agrees to pay all or part of your tuition fees; the University will refer to them as your sponsor and will invoice them for the appropriate amount.

We must receive notification of sponsorship in writing as soon as possible, and before enrolment, confirming that the sponsor will pay your tuition fees.


Financial Hardship:

Students can apply to the Dennis Turner Opportunity Fund for help with course related costs however this cannot be used for fees or to cover general living costs.


Charitable Funding:

You might also want to explore the possibility of funding from charitable trusts. Please contact Association of Charitable Foundations, Directory of Social Change or Family Aid. Most charities and trust funds offer limited bursaries targeted to specific groups of students so you will need to research whether any of them are relevant to your situation.

You can find more information on the University’s Funding, cost, fee and support pages.

Telephone

01902 32 22 22

Email

enquiries@wlv.ac.uk

Online

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