Occupational Therapy (pre-registration)

Applicants with a distinction award in a Bachelor’s degree where honours study was not an option in a relevant health and social care professional will be considered for selection where they can evidence experience of engagement with research evidence. Applicants will be directed to undertake study at SCQF Level 10 as a condition for entry in the form of a bridging module identified by the programme team.

Candidates must also have demonstrated commitment to, and knowledge of, Occupational Therapy as a career. Candidates will be able to evidence to Admissions through their application form and personal statement they have met with/shadowed a range of Occupational Therapists in diverse settings while being able to compare and contrast/discuss these different ways of working.

Competition for places varies from year-to-year and achievement of the typical minimum entry requirements does not always guarantee shortlisting for interview or a place on the course.

There will be a selection interview and applicants to the programme should meet the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) requirement to be ‘fit to practice’ through having good health and good character.

This innovative programme is designed for graduates who wish to qualify as an Occupational Therapist, with eligibility for registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). It offers an accelerated two-year route of study.

This unique MSc (pre-registration) Occupational Therapy degree programme best prepares you as a future occupational therapist to work effectively within the complex and rapidly evolving environment of health and social care. Being both intellectually challenging and practical, this programme will ready you for the real world of occupational therapy at a local and global level. You will enter the workplace as a confident, competent, and autonomous occupational therapist equipped to lead the delivery of personalised and responsive services, which place individuals and families at the centre of their care and support.

As well as undertaking discipline-specific modules, you’ll undertake collaborative inter-professional modules, where you’ll work closely with students from the other disciplines in health and social care to develop your skills in communication, innovative thinking, clinical reasoning and team working.

The outstanding Simulation and Clinical Skills Centre provides the facilities to further develop your skills in realistic settings including the home environment.

Edinburgh and its surrounding areas have been a significant location for occupational therapy professional development over the past century. During the First World War, our Craiglockhart campus was a military psychiatric hospital for officers suffering from ‘shell shock’. The internationally renowned War Poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen were patients there. The hospital was known for its ‘work cure’, elements of which can be traced to the development of occupational therapy as we know it today. The embryonic profession of occupational therapy was later established at the Astley Ainslie Hospital and the Council Meeting of the first ‘World Federation of Occupational Therapists’ was held in Edinburgh in 1954 and again in 1992. At Edinburgh Napier University we aim to continue this tradition of occupational therapy professional development.

Edinburgh Napier University is recognised as a University that is professional, ambitious, innovative, and inclusive, values that are embedded into the teaching of the programme.