Advanced Clinical Practice (Critical Care)

Entry requirements

Hold a pre-registration degree in a relevant allied health profession, be currently employed in the clinical speciality you wish to apply for and have the following relevant experience as a minimum:

1. Students currently working in the UK - At least 1 year of post qualification clinical work experience in the specialism they have applied for. Typically this should be work experience from a ‘Band 6’ level role.
2. Students currently working outside of the UK – At least 2 years post qualification clinical work experience, ideally including at least 1 year in the specialism you have applied for.

You must have met the minimum work experience requirement at the point you apply for the programme. For example, if you submit your application in February 2025, you must have 2 years experience by February 2025 (depending on whether you are working in or outside the UK). This is to make sure that you will definitely have enough experience when you join the course. This does not include internships as they are supervised and therefore technically still part of your training. You should aim to provide documented evidence of your clinical work experience. All applicants should include a detailed CV as part of their application. Applicants who are working outside of the UK should could include letters of recommendations and/or confirmation of employment (we appreciate that what you can provide will vary from one person to another and be dependent on your specific background and employer, so please aim to provide as much documentary evidence when you apply).
For International entry requirements, please see the course page on the Brunel website.

Months of entry

September

Course content

Are you a nurse or allied health professional that cares for critically ill patients? Perhaps you work in a critical care area and wish to learn more about the management of your patients? Or maybe you care for patients in step-down units (SDUs)? If so, this advanced clinical practice pathway in critical care, is designed to provide you with the solid academic foundation you’ll need to progress as an advanced clinician.

On this course, you’ll develop advanced assessment and clinical reasoning skills for the acute management and rehabilitation of critically ill patients from intensive care units through to their discharge. You will acquire a comprehensive knowledge of critical care, which will enable you to work at an advanced level of practice and apply your knowledge to the acute management and rehabilitation of critically ill patients.

By studying the latest practices, policy and research, you will then be able to contribute to practice development initiatives to help your patients and improve their quality of care and health outcomes.

At Brunel, we understand the challenges of fitting study around work and family life. For this reason, we have designed this course to be flexible so that it can fit around your current commitments. The full master's course can be studied 3 years part-time starting in September.

If you don’t want to commit to part-time study of the entire master's, you can develop your educational portfolio over a longer period of time by undertaking staged study that leads to the award of Postgraduate Certificate (PgCert) after one year of study, Postgraduate Diploma (PgDip) after two years of study and full Masters (MSc) after three years of study.

Please note that it is important you apply for the stage you will be studying in that year, i.e. to study for the PgDip you must have already completed the PgCert and you only apply for the staged MSc once you have completed the PgDip.

Each stage can be studied 1 year part-time starting in September. You could even just take one or more CPPD modules for your professional development and return to complete your course at a later date.

Information for international students

If you require a Tier 4 visa to study in the UK, you must prove knowledge of the English language so that we can issue you a Certificate of Acceptance for Study (CAS). To do this, you will need an IELTS for UKVI or Trinity SELT test pass gained from a test centre approved by UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) and on the Secure English Language Testing (SELT) list. This must have been taken and passed within two years from the date the CAS is made.

Fees and funding

See our fees and funding page for full details of postgraduate scholarships available to Brunel applicants.