Course summary

Students will obtain the clinical skills and knowledge required to become a healthcare professional. This is achieved through early clinical exposure to patients beginning early in year 1 of the programme and sustained throughout, with in excess of 1600 hours of placement during the programme. Graduates will have the skills and attributes to undertake the National Examination for Physician Associates and subsequently register with the Faculty of Physician Associates and to develop a career as a Physician Associate practitioner in the local healthcare economy. Training is mapped to the Competence and Curriculum Framework for the Physician Assistant (DH, 2012) and the Matrix Specification of Core Clinical Conditions for the Physician Associate (DH, 2006) to enable students to gain the knowledge, skills, experiences, competencies and attributes needed to prepare a student for the national qualifying exams (FPA, 2017e) and enter the national register (FPA, 2017f) as qualified PAs to work in the NHS