
Student working with beakers in lab
Independent Prescribing for Pharmacists
Start Dates
21 September 2026, 11 January 2027
Duration
12 months part-time
Overview
Why choose Huddersfield for this course?
- Understand the legal, ethical, and professional responsibilities that guide prescribing practice.
- Build strong communication and reflective skills to support patient-centred care and self-management.
- Learn the key principles of safe, effective, and ethical prescribing within your professional scope.
Accreditation and Professional Links
Recognised connections to give you an extra edge when you graduate. Read More
This short course provides pharmacists with the necessary skills and knowledge to practise safely and effectively as a prescriber. The course is aimed at an experienced pharmacist with up to date clinical knowledge and a defined area of practice in which you wish to prescribe. The course is suitable for pharmacists working in primary (community and PCN), intermediate and secondary care within the UK.
The course is delivered as a blended learning programme to deliver a syllabus that aligns with learning outcomes as defined by the General Pharmaceutical Council, through 12 blended learning academic study days, plus further time to focus on learning in practice. The 12 academic study days (Tuesdays) include at least 2 face-to-face study days with a focus on clinical skills and developing a portfolio of practice, supported by an online study programme that includes a combination of scheduled remote activities and learning the student can complete independently. Early submission points are available at 6 and 9 months.
The full learning outcomes are available at Standards for the education and training of pharmacist independent prescribers.
Entry Requirements
These are determined by professional requirements as defined by the General Pharmaceutical Council. The course is offered part-time to pharmacists registered as a pharmacist with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) or, in Northern Ireland, with the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI).
Students must be UK registered pharmacists and be in good standing with the GPhC and /or PSNI and any other healthcare regulator with which they are registered.
They must have relevant experience in a UK pharmacy setting and be able to recognise, understand and articulate the skills and attributes required by a prescriber.
They must have identified an area of clinical practice in which to develop their prescribing practice, and have an up-to-date experience and clinical, knowledge relevant to their intended area of practice.
All students must have a Designated Prescribing Practitioner who has agreed to supervise their learning in practice. The DPP must be UK registered independent prescriber with suitable experience and capacity to support learning in practice. The full details of appropriate people to undertake this role is available at DPP competency framework | RPS (rpharms.com). In addition to the RPS requirement, the DPP must be able to act as an impartial assessor and therefore should not be a family member or similar.
If your first language is not English, you will need to meet the minimum requirements of an English Language qualification. The minimum for IELTS is 6.0 overall with no element lower than 5.5, or equivalent will be considered acceptable. Read more about the University’s entry requirements for students outside of the UK on our International Entry Requirements page.
Course Details
Teaching and Assessment
Discover what to expect from your tutor contact time, assessment methods, and feedback process.
Placements
You will spend a total of 90 hours in supervised practice, which will be facilitated by your Designated Prescriber Practitioner.
Fees and Finance
This information is for Home and International students applying to study at the University of Huddersfield in the academic year 2026/27.
Modules credits can range from 15 to 60, dependent on the content of the module. Read more about total credits required for a range of degrees, to allow you to calculate the potential total cost.
Please note that tuition fees for subsequent years may rise in line with inflation (RPI-X) and/or Government policy and/or to ensure our distance learning fees are competitive.
Tuition fees will cover the cost of your study at the University. Read more about what is and is not covered by Tuition Fees including compliance for Goods and Services Tax for International Students studying an online course.
For detailed information please visit www.hud.ac.uk/distance-learning/fees-and-finance/
This information is for Home and International students applying to study at the University of Huddersfield in the academic year 2026/27.
Modules credits can range from 15 to 60, dependent on the content of the module. Read more about total credits required for a range of degrees, to allow you to calculate the potential total cost.
Please note that tuition fees for subsequent years may rise in line with inflation (RPI-X) and/or Government policy and/or to ensure our distance learning fees are competitive.
Tuition fees will cover the cost of your study at the University. Read more about what is and is not covered by Tuition Fees including compliance for Goods and Services Tax for International Students studying an online course.
For detailed information please visit www.hud.ac.uk/distance-learning/fees-and-finance/
Scholarships and Bursaries
Discover what additional help you may be eligible for to support your University studies.
Tuition Fee Loans
Find out more about tuition fee loans available to eligible postgraduate students.
What’s included in your fee?
We want you to understand exactly what your fees will cover and what additional costs you may need to budget for when you decide to become a student with us.
If you have any questions about Fees and Finance, please email the Student Finance Team.
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Our researchers carry out world-leading work that makes a real difference to people’s lives. Staff within the Department of Pharmacy may teach you on this course.
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When you enrol as a student of the University, your study and time with us will be governed by our terms and conditions, Handbook of Regulations and associated policies. It is important that you familiarise yourself with these as you will be asked to agree to them when you join us as a student. You will find a guide to the key terms here, along with the Student Protection Plan.
Although we always try and ensure we deliver our courses as described, sometimes we may have to make changes for the following reasons:
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If we propose to make a major change to a course that you are holding an offer for, then we will tell you as soon as possible so that you can decide whether to withdraw your application prior to enrolment. We may occasionally have to withdraw a course you have applied for or combine your programme with another programme if we consider this reasonably necessary to ensure a good student experience, for example if there are not enough applicants. Where this is the case we will notify you as soon as reasonably possible and if you are unhappy with the change we will discuss with you other suitable courses we can transfer your application to. If you do not wish to transfer to another course with us, you may cancel your application and we will refund you any deposits or fees you have paid to us.
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Where your course allows you to choose modules from a range of options, we will review these each year and change them to reflect the expertise of our staff, current trends in research and as a result of student feedback or demand for certain modules. We will always ensure that you have an equivalent range of options to that advertised for the course. We will let you know in good time the options available for you to choose for the following year.
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We will only make major changes to non-optional modules on a course if it is necessary for us to do so and provided such changes are reasonable. A major change is a change that substantially changes the outcomes, or a significant part of your course, such as the nature of the award or a substantial change to module content, teaching days (part time provision), type of delivery or assessment of the core curriculum. For example, it may be necessary to make a major change to reflect changes in the law or the requirements of the University’s regulators or a commissioning or accrediting body. We may also make changes to improve the course in response to student, examiners’ or other course evaluators’ feedback or to ensure you are being taught current best practice. Major changes may also be necessary because of circumstances outside our reasonable control, such as a key member of staff being unable to teach due to illness, where they have a particular specialism that can’t be adequately covered by other members of staff; or due to pandemics, other disasters (such as fire, flood or war) or changes made by the government.
Major changes would usually be made with effect from the next academic year, but may happen sooner in an emergency. We will notify you as soon as possible should we need to make a major change and will consult with affected groups of students and any changes would only be made in accordance with our regulations. If you reasonably believe that the proposed change will cause you detriment or hardship we will, if appropriate, work with you to try to reduce the adverse effect on you or find an appropriate solution. Where an appropriate solution cannot be found and you let us know before the change takes effect you can cancel your registration and withdraw from the University without liability to the University for any additional tuition fees. We will provide reasonable support to assist you with transferring to another university if you wish to do so and you may be eligible for an exit award depending on how far through your course you are.
In exceptional circumstances, we may, for reasons outside of our control, be forced to discontinue or suspend your course. Where this is the case, a formal exit strategy will be followed in accordance with the student protection plan.
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