Management of Minor Injuries and Illness for Advanced Practice

This course is intended to enhance independent practice by developing your skills, knowledge and critical understanding of minor injury and illness management to an advanced level, applicable to your own field of practice.

You will further develop your skills in patient consultation and assessment, and specifically your clinical decision-making skills in managing patients who present with minor injuries and illness.

Who is it for?

This course is suitable for nurses and healthcare professionals working in acute and unscheduled care settings, such as emergency departments, walk-in clinics, urgent care centres, primary care or other community and first contact settings. This includes, but is not limited to Paramedics, Practice Nurses and Nurse Practitioners.

Timetable

The course consists of five study days, of 6 hours each. As well as this 30 hours of classroom-based teaching, students are also expected to undertake 120 hours of self-directed study.

Study days are on alternate Mondays at 9.30 to16.30 and the dates are as follows:

• 10th May 2021
• 24th May 2021
• 7th June 2021
• 21st June 2021
• 5th July 2021

Benefits

The course aims to contribute to the development of a practitioner who can fulfil the competencies and domains implicit in advanced practice, and so on completion of the course, it is expected that you will be working towards the goal of advanced practice.

Credits

This course is worth 15 credits toward eligible programmes.

By the end of the course you will be able to demonstrate success in the following areas:

Knowledge and understanding:

• Utilise a variety of structured approaches in the management of patients presenting with minor injuries and illness
• Critically explore multi-professional working for effective management of minor injuries and illness to reduce or avoid hospital admissions
• Advance your role beyond previous practice.

Skills:

• Critically evaluate and interpret the history of the chief complaint, related problems, presenting symptoms, physical findings, and diagnostic information
• Demonstrate the ability to formulate evidence-based diagnoses and determine appropriate therapeutic interventions
• Make appropriate referrals to and work effectively with other professionals to ensure safe, effective care
• Initiate appropriate and timely consultation and/or referral when the problem exceeds the scope of your expertise.

Values and attitudes:

• Demonstrate compassion in care delivery based on empathy, respect and dignity
• Demonstrate professionalism and expertise when working in partnership with clients and colleagues
• Critically reflect on your practice.

This course is taught through a variety of methods including lectures and practical sessions.

Assessment is through a Practice Assessment Document (PAD), in which you must be assessed as having seen 6 patients in practice. In addition, there is a 2,000-word critical reflection on one of these patients.

You must achieve a minimum mark of 50% in the essay and pass the PAD in practice to pass the course.

Success in the course will result in the award of 15 credits at Level 7, and a certificate of completion

Credits

This course is worth 15 credits toward eligible programmes.

Participants should be registered health professionals with a minimum of two years post-qualification experience. You should be working in a healthcare setting where you see patients presenting with minor injury and/or illness. Relevant workplace opportunities and organisational support should be in place to enable you to achieve successful completion of the course. You must have access to mentors/supervisors who will be able to assess you in practice.

This course can be taken as a stand-alone course, or as part of the MSc Advanced Practice Health & Social Care (MSc APHSC).

This course is the follow-up course to Assessment of Minor Injuries and Illness for Advanced Practice (APM050). It is expected that the Assessment course would be competed prior to undertaking this one but may be taken alone if you have established assessment skills or have already undertaken some assessment training.

English requirements

For those students whose first language is not English, the following qualification is also required:

• IELTS: 7.0

• Bickley, L. (2016) Bates Guide to Physical Examination and History Taking. 12th Ed. Philadelphia: Lippincott.
• Purcell, D. (2010) Minor Injuries: A Clinical Guide for Nurses. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone.