Theory is vital to provide you with the knowledge, understanding and critical decision-making skills you need as a paramedic. The modules you study across the three years enable you to develop knowledge and put it into your practice placements to enhance and develop your skills as you make an immediate and continuing contribution to service user care. You also develop enhanced communication, personal and professional skills.
You will be able to confidently take a history from a service user to assess their needs and prioritise care; formulate a management and treatment plan; refer service users to other healthcare providers or professionals and, in a significant number of cases, offer care at home, advice and guidance and promote healthy interventions and conversations with service users, carers and their family. You continually develop your clinical decision-making and complex-problem solving skill, and support service users navigating and interpreting healthcare information and clinical guidance; and offer advice from your well-developed understanding of evidence-based practice.
Care, compassion and commitment to high-quality care are essential skills. We support your development as a clinical leader and key decision maker as we develop your professional skills and understanding of the wider healthcare network in practice placements. Your practice placements are in a variety of emergency care placements (hosted by ambulance services) and community placements (hospitals, community bases and other areas) such as intensive care,, GP surgeries, urgent care centres, mental health teams, children services and more. These practice placements provide an opportunity to embed yourself in a wide range of healthcare settings and to network with other healthcare professionals, ensuring your service users access the best and highest quality of care provided by you or other healthcare professionals at the right time, by the right person at a convenience place to suit them.
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Course structure
Year 1 core modules
Foundations of Anatomy and Physiology for Paramedic Practice
Get to grips with the basics of anatomy and physiology – anatomical names for bones, structures and how they work and interact with each other. This forms the basis of how the human body works (like the cardiovascular system, respiratory system) how it should work normally, and how and why it sometimes doesn't. You explore what can go wrong and the impact of lifestyle, infection, disease, chronic long-term illness (such as diabetes) and acute illness (chest infection, myocardial infarction) on the body.
Foundations of Professionalism and Academic Practice for Paramedics
This module explores what it means to be a professional and how to act, think, feel and make professional decisions. We look at the role of the regulator – the Health and Care Professions Council – and how it protects patients, paramedics and the wider NHS, and how paramedics can make a contribution to the wider healthcare network. You also explore the law in relation to medicine and ethics with some case studies and group discussions.
Introduction to Essential Skills and History Taking for Safe Paramedic Practice
You learn how to use and access equipment to help you make a diagnosis or inform your decision about how to manage a service user or formulate a management plan. Skills such as taking a pulse, blood pressure, inserting a cannula, managing an airway, using a stethoscope or a heart monitor to help diagnose a myocardial infarction. You gain confidence in using all types of equipment and develop practice skills to support your diagnosis and treatment plans.
You start to learn how to take a comprehensive patient history to prioritise care and management of the service users you assess. All of the practice placement learning sits in this module. You are out in practice for 750 hours (20 weeks) in emergency care and community placements, putting all of theory you have learned in Year 1 into practice. First-year placements include spending time developing your caring skills in a ward area or nursing home, emergency care in an ambulance, critical care (ITU, HDU, emergency department) and patient assessment areas (GP practice, urgent care centres).
Introduction to Evidence-based Practice for Paramedics
You focus on academic writing, referencing and reflecting on learning styles, and are introduced to the principles of evidence-based practice (EBP) and to explore the role of EBP in the current context of paramedic practice. You also gain an insight in to the research process and the most common methodologies.
Paramedic Practice Assessment: Part 1
The skills and knowledge you gain on this module will enable you to practice competently and safely, appropriate to the first year of study. Skills developed include decision making, assessment, and care for service users in a range of placement areas. On placement you are required to attend an average of 37.5 hours per week, including weekends and unsocial hours. Placements are integral to this module and are in paramedic and non-paramedic contexts. They have been informed by the College of Paramedics education framework to enable you to gain a wider understanding of the complex decisions and care you will be required to manage.
Year 2 core modules
Developing Anatomy, Physiology and Pathophysiology for Paramedic Practice
Following on from the Foundations of Anatomy and Physiology for Paramedic Practice module in Year 1, you further develop your knowledge of anatomy and physiology, and start to understand pathophysiology. This is the complex understanding of body systems such as the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, the changes chronic and acute illness have on the efficiency of those systems, and the outward impact of diabetes, asthma and other illnesses and diseases.
Evidence-based Practice for Paramedics
You develop your ability to find and interpret information, and make professional comments on the quality and strength of evidence. You also develop a good understanding of research and research processes and how they inform, enhance and develop practice guidelines and treatment options for service users. You gain confidence in interpreting, presenting and commenting on evidence and its value for service user care, integrating this into your decision-making and problem-solving skills.
Managing Trauma for Paramedics
You further develop your understanding of how to manage major trauma. Paramedics who chose to work in this area, as part of a hazardous area response specialist team, in an emergency department, as part of a major trauma team or responding on behalf of an emergency service, develop key skills in rapid assessing, managing and treating service users who present with trauma. You develop your skills of advanced airway management and interventions. And you further develop your skills in trauma management from Year 1 with practical scenarios on chest decompression, thoracotomy and other advanced trauma skills.
Paramedic Practice Assessment: Part 2
You builds on the skills, knowledge and experience gained in Part 1. On placement you are required to attend an average of 37.5 hours per week, including weekends and unsocial hours. Placements are integral to this module and are in paramedic and non-paramedic contexts. They have been informed by the College of Paramedics education framework to enable you to gain a wider understanding of the complex decisions and care you will be required to manage.
The Management and Treatment of Acute and Chronic Conditions across the Lifespan
You examine how you can support service users to self-manage their condition with or without further advice and/or treatment, refer them to another health care professional or provider or manage care during transport to another facility. You apply knowledge, understanding and skills to enable focused assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation of interventions and care for a range of acute/chronic conditions across the lifespan. The key concepts of clinical reasoning, decision-making and the ability to critically analyse clinical guidance and other sources of evidence will have a strong focus. You apply these to the presenting condition and critically analyse how this enhances your ability to support the service user to make decisions about their care.
Year 3 core modules
Dissertation: Using Evidence to Improve Paramedic Practice
Your dissertation is an opportunity to demonstrate how you have integrated all your learning of evidence-based practice, decision-making and complex problem-solving. You are expected to carry out a systematic review of a topic of keen interest or one with significant impact on service users and their care. Once completed we hope that you will be able to publish your dissertation results in a professional publication.
Minor Injury and Illness Assessment in the Community
The majority of patients who present to paramedics in the community have minor injury or illness at the centre of their request for healthcare professional intervention. In this module you learn how to carry out an in-depth assessment of minor injury and illness. You learn skills such as wound closure, catheterisation, in-depth assessment of minor bony injuries (ankle, knee and hand injuries) and other injuries and illnesses that service users present to urgent care centres, GP surgeries and emergency departments. You develop your skills to confidentially manage these service users in the community, offering advice and guidance on self-care.
Paramedic Practice Assessment: Part 3
Your further develop your skills, knowledge and experience gained in Parts 1 and 2. On placement you are required to attend an average of 37.5 hours per week, including weekends and unsocial hours. Placements are integral to this module and are in paramedic and non-paramedic contexts. They have been informed by the College of Paramedics education framework to enable you to gain a wider understanding of the complex decisions and care you will be required to manage.
The Role of the Paramedic in Public Health, Resilience and Emergency Preparedness
You explore an incident or public health emergency to consider and evaluate what your future role would be, submitted in a report format. You consider these contexts within a forensic environment to prepare you for such events in future practice and the impact of PTSD following attending such events and how this could impact on your own personal resilience and wellbeing. Guest speakers on specialist topics will widen your understanding and share their professional experiences.
Transition to Autonomous Professional Paramedic Practice
This module prepares you for becoming a professional and getting ready to apply for registration as a paramedic with the Health and Care Professions Council. You focus on clinical leadership, developing your skills in self-management and personal effectiveness for your transition from student to registered practitioner. Third-year placements mean further developing your caring skills and having specific placements in patient assessment with a focus on community care (GP practice, urgent care centres). You can choose from a range of approved options to spend focused time in an area of practice to hone your skills.
