Allied health professionals
Advanced Practice Nursing Diploma
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A live online diploma for experienced registered nurses working towards or in advanced practice: the assessment, clinical reasoning, investigation and medicines decisions you make with undifferentiated and complex patients, and the leadership, education and research that complete the advanced practice role.
Twenty-five weekly sessions across five modules take you from the role and its governance, through the acutely unwell patient, investigations and medicines, and long-term conditions, to leadership, supervision and research, anchored on guidance from the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and taught live by practising clinicians you can question. It is professional development with an assessed digital certificate: it does not confer advanced practitioner or nurse practitioner status, prescribing rights, credentialing or registration, which come only through recognised national routes such as accredited master's programmes.
- Course director
- To be announced
- Format
- 25 live weekly sessions on Zoom, in 5 modules
- Fee
- £1,200 (scholarships available)
- Dates
- Confirmed when enrolment opens
Who it is for
Experienced registered nurses working towards or already in advanced practice roles in primary, urgent, acute and community care, worldwide.
The programme
25 one-hour sessions in 5 modules, each with its learning objectives. This is the draft programme: the course director reviews and refines it before enrolment opens, so session titles may change.
Module 1 · Sessions 1 to 5The advanced practice role, assessment and reasoning
1. Advanced practice: what it is and what governs it
- Explain how advanced practice nursing is defined and governed in your country
- Distinguish the routes that confer advanced practitioner recognition from professional development that does not
- Map your current role against the four pillars of clinical practice, education, research, and leadership and management
- Compare advanced practice nursing roles in the UK, the US and other health systems
2. Accountability, scope and working within competence
- Define the limits of your practice using regulator, employer and team expectations
- Decline or escalate a request that is beyond your competence
- Document clinical decisions so that they can be reviewed and defended
- Identify the governance arrangements an advanced role needs from its employer
3. Clinical reasoning and diagnostic error
- Generate and rank a differential diagnosis from an undifferentiated presentation
- Recognise common cognitive biases in your own reasoning
- Give safety-netting advice that tells the patient what to watch for and when to return
- Share decisions with patients in line with NICE NG197
4. History taking and consultation skills
- Take a focused history that tests your leading diagnoses
- Adapt a consultation for remote, interpreted or time-limited settings
- Present a patient concisely to a senior colleague with a proposed plan
- Manage a consultation with a patient who brings several problems at once
5. Advanced physical examination
- Perform a focused systems examination that answers the clinical question
- Interpret examination findings that change the likely diagnosis
- Recognise the limits of examination when deciding on investigations
- Explain the purpose of an intimate examination and arrange a chaperone appropriately
Module 2 · Sessions 6 to 10The acutely unwell and undifferentiated patient
6. Sepsis and the deteriorating patient
- Assess suspected sepsis using the risk approach in NICE NG253
- Use early warning score bands to decide the urgency of review
- Escalate a deteriorating patient and hand over using a structured approach
- Start time-critical treatment within your role and local protocols
7. Chest pain and breathlessness
- Assess recent-onset chest pain and identify presentations that need emergency care
- Apply two-level Wells scores and the pulmonary embolism rule-out criteria, as NICE NG158 recommends
- Interpret troponin results in the context of symptom timing
- Arrange natriuretic peptide testing and referral for suspected heart failure, as NICE NG106 recommends
8. Abdominal pain and gastrointestinal presentations
- Assess acute abdominal pain and identify surgical red flags
- Exclude pregnancy-related causes in anyone who could be pregnant
- Recognise atypical presentations of serious abdominal disease in older people
- Decide between same-day referral, urgent review and safety-netted discharge
9. Headache, dizziness and suspected stroke
- Identify red flags that suggest a secondary cause of headache
- Diagnose migraine and tension-type headache and advise on acute treatment
- Recognise suspected stroke or transient ischaemic attack using validated recognition tools
- Refer suspected transient ischaemic attack for specialist assessment within 24 hours, without risk scoring, as NICE NG128 recommends
10. Musculoskeletal and minor injury presentations
- Assess acute back pain and recognise symptoms of cauda equina syndrome
- Decide which limb injuries need imaging using validated decision rules
- Recognise injuries that are commonly missed in urgent care
- Give evidence-based advice for soft tissue injuries and back pain without routine imaging
Module 3 · Sessions 11 to 15Investigations and medicines
11. Requesting and interpreting blood tests
- Request blood tests that answer a specific clinical question
- Interpret common blood results in the context of the patient
- Act on results that need same-day attention
- Take responsibility for following up every result you request
12. The ECG and the chest X-ray
- Read an ECG systematically and recognise findings that need immediate action
- Read a chest X-ray systematically and recognise urgent findings
- Explain who may request imaging under local ionising radiation procedures
- Communicate abnormal findings with a clear plan and timescale
13. Applied pharmacology and medicines optimisation
- Apply pharmacokinetic principles to medicines decisions in older people and in renal or liver impairment
- Identify clinically important drug interactions
- Carry out a structured medication review that considers deprescribing
- Explain the qualification and governance that prescribing requires in your country
14. Infection and antimicrobial stewardship
- Decide when an infection needs no antibiotic, a back-up prescription or immediate treatment
- Apply the principles of NICE NG15 to your own practice
- Explain an antibiotic decision to a patient who expects a prescription
- Recognise children with fever who need urgent assessment, using NICE NG143
15. High-risk medicines
- Identify the monitoring that high-risk medicines require
- Recognise and act on adverse effects of anticoagulants, insulin and opioids
- Report a medication error and contribute to learning from it
- Advise patients on the safe use of high-risk medicines
Module 4 · Sessions 16 to 20Long-term conditions and complex care
16. Hypertension and cardiovascular risk
- Confirm a diagnosis of hypertension using ambulatory or home blood pressure monitoring
- Choose treatment steps and targets in line with NICE NG136
- Assess cardiovascular risk and discuss lipid-lowering treatment using NICE NG238
- Explain why diagnostic thresholds differ between UK and US guidance
17. Type 2 diabetes
- Agree an individualised glucose control target with the patient
- Choose medicines for type 2 diabetes in line with the current NICE NG28 recommendations
- Give sick day advice to people taking diabetes medicines
- Make sure foot, eye and kidney checks are done and acted on
18. Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
- Confirm a diagnosis of asthma with an objective test, as NICE NG245 recommends
- Step asthma treatment up or down using the NICE NG245 pathway
- Optimise treatment for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and identify patients for pulmonary rehabilitation
- Write an exacerbation action plan with the patient
19. Frailty, delirium and the older person
- Assess frailty and explain how it changes the plan
- Screen for delirium with the 4AT tool and identify its likely causes
- Identify older people at risk of falls and refer them for assessment, as NICE NG249 recommends
- Agree care priorities with older people who have several long-term conditions
20. Mental health, capacity and safeguarding
- Assess a person after self-harm without relying on risk prediction tools, as NICE NG225 advises
- Assess mental capacity for a specific decision
- Recognise safeguarding concerns for adults and children and act on them
- Refer to mental health services with the information they need
Module 5 · Sessions 21 to 25Leadership, education, research and end-of-life care
21. Leading change and service development
- Identify a service problem and define a measurable aim
- Apply a quality improvement method to test a change
- Build a case for change that addresses cost, safety and workforce
- Influence colleagues and managers to adopt a change
22. Supervision, education and developing others
- Plan supervision for a trainee advanced practitioner
- Use workplace-based assessment to judge competence
- Give feedback that is specific and leads to improvement
- Arrange your own supervision and support
23. Research, evidence and audit
- Turn a clinical problem into an answerable question
- Appraise a trial or guideline for quality and relevance
- Design a clinical audit against a published standard
- Evaluate the outcomes of your own practice
24. Palliative and end-of-life care
- Recognise when a person may be in the last days of life
- Plan symptom control, including anticipatory medicines, with the team
- Lead an advance care planning conversation
- Support families through death and bereavement
25. Complex case review and your development plan
- Apply the course to complex cases in a panel discussion
- Build portfolio evidence of advanced-level practice from your own work
- Explain the recognised routes to advanced practitioner status in your country
- Write a personal development plan for the next two years
What the diploma includes
- 25 live sessions on Zoom, one evening a week, with recordings for the weeks you miss.
- Practising specialists teaching live, so you can put your questions to them.
- Weekly MCQs and a final written assessment.
- A digital certificate carrying your final classification.
Lead or teach the Advanced Practice Nursing Diploma
We are looking for a course director and faculty from the specialty. Sessions are one hour in the UK evening, live on Zoom, and paid.