Key points
• Choose from over 150 modules.
• Focus on your area of expertise to gain a specialist award (MSc).
• Study at your own pace with up to four units a year.
• Gain accreditation for any previous qualifications and learning.

Continue your professional development as a health and social care professional on this flexible course. You tailor your studies according to your own development needs choose from over 150 modules that help your develop your career. You can choose modules that cover professions, leadership and management, interprofessional learning and research.

Each module you study awards credit towards a postgraduate certificate, postgraduate diploma or Masters in Advanced Professional Development.

To graduate with an MSc you need to gain 180 level 7 credits. Each module you study will have a credit value and once successfully completed this credit is added to your total. You carry on adding credit until you have achieved your award. Alternatively, you can leave with a postgraduate certificate after you have completed 60 credits or a postgraduate diploma after you have completed 120 credits.

If you study modules that reflect your professional identity and you go on to complete the full MSc, you can graduate with a specialist masters award. The award titles available are
• MSc Advancing Professional (Nursing)
• MSc Advancing Professional (Leadership)
• MSc Advancing Professional (Paediatrics)
• MSc Advancing Professional (Vocational Rehabilitation)
• MSc Advancing Professional (Social Work)
• MSc Advancing Professional (Medicine)

The skills, experience and knowledge you gain enable you to improve your career prospects. You can gain promotions by take increased responsibility or widen your career path and access new roles. It is also an opportunity to develop your professional practice, building on expertise you already possess.

This course is designed to be as flexible as possible allowing you to choose
• the amount you want to study depending on your needs
• the pace you want to work at, allowing you to meet work, personal and study commitments
• from a wide variety of modules, ensuring that what you learn is directly relevant to you

If you would like advice on choosing the right modules for you, a course tutor can work with you to identify the modules and study path best suited. It is also worth enquiring about the possibility of gaining credit from any previous study, to help achieve your qualification more quickly.

Find out more about the advanced professional development framework of modules by visiting our continuing professional development website.

How the framework operates
Once we receive your application, you can meet up with a course tutor. They work with you to find the best modules for your needs. This may be studying an individual module, choosing a selection of modules that enable you to transfer to a course to gain a professional qualification, or to help to identify a clear route through the framework to give you the skills and experience you need to progress your career.

You can decide your pace of study. You may take up to four modules every year. We know how hard it can be to combine demanding work and personal commitments with academic study, so the APP framework allows you to step on and step off at each award level. If you have already carried out some postgraduate level study at another university or in the workplace, you may be able to gain accreditation for your previous experience and learning.