This unit has been designed for registered healthcare professionals in primary care and urgent care services caring for both adults and children. It will help practitioners to develop their knowledge and skills in the assessment, planning and treatment of a range of minor ailments commonly presenting in children. It will also enable students to evaluate the evidence base for practice, thereby enhancing their clinical reasoning skills. Students will complete a Clinical Practice Portfolio which will be assessed their own place of work by a practice assessor.

Indicative unit content

• Child Development- anatomy and physiology, functional, behavioural , motor & social Developmental milestones
• Approaches to a child
• History taking, physical assessment and triage of children
• Examination of a child with undifferentiated minor illnesses and injuries
• Recognition of red flags for referral
• Management of commonly presenting childhood ailments and injuries in primary and urgent care
• Recognising and responding to the sick child in the primary & urgent care environment. 
• Legal and ethical issues in children’s nursing
• The use of Paediatric Early Warning Score systems
• Safety netting 

Learning and teaching methods

The unit will use a blended learning approach comprising a mixture of lectures, workshops, tutorials, on-line materials and work based learning. Students will be required to undertake group work and benefit from interprofessional peer learning. 

This course requires 100% attendance.

This course can be used towards the PG Cert Primary Care

Applicants must be registered healthcare professionals working in urgent or primary care settings with at least one year’s post registration experience. 

Normally students may enter Level 7 (Master's level) study if they have been awarded:

• Undergraduate degree (honours or non-honours)
• An equivalent qualification (the learning outcome of which are demonstrably appropriate in terms of knowledge, understanding and skills) equivalent to 120 credits at Level 6.

If you do not meet this criteria you are still able to apply for this unit but we may ask you to complete a study skills handbook to familiarise yourself with academic writing at masters level or pre-admission work. This will be sent to you when we have received your application form.

This unit is also available at Level 6 (degree level).

Fees and funding:

You will need to pay or indicate employer support of payment for unit or course fees to the university.

Applicants working within the NHS or other healthcare providers may be eligible for support with funding from their employer through the Learning Beyond Registration contract with the NHS South of England.

Applicants should contact their employing organisation for further details.

Pre-purchased places

The Faculty of Health & Social Sciences has contractual arrangements with NHS organisations for pre-paid places on specified modules. If you work within Dorset & Somerset or Hampshire & Isle of Wight you may be able to access the pre-paid places. These arrangements allow NHS Trusts to nominate the staff they wish to send on each unit or course.

The pre-arranged agreements allow individuals, such as yourself, a route to access appropriate professional development opportunities that are seen as strategically important to your organisation (in consultation with your Line Manager/Education Co-ordinator). All requests for pre-paid places must first be agreed by your organisation’s Education Lead prior to completing an application.

In pairs, students will start a thread on a paediatric ailment on Brightspace and moderate a discussion with other students through the thread. The Unit leader will offer feedback through the discussion board.

Students will complete a clinical practice portfolio. Once this has been completed, students will have a viva assessment based on their development within the competency booklet (3000 word equivalent). 

Having successfully completed this unit the student is expected to:

1. Critically reflect on their ability to confidently approach a child and perform a thorough history taking with parental involvement as relevant. 
2. Implement and evaluate a full assessment of the presenting child, applying their skills and systematic understanding of the relevant pathophysiology and child development to synthesise a diagnosis. 
3. Critically appraise the evidence-base to create a treatment plan that is patient-focused, ensures personalised care and safety netting of the child 
4. Critically evaluate and reflect upon their personal abilities, knowledge, skills and levels of professional competence, recognising when to act independently, interdependently or when to be dependent on the interventions of other team members.

Course review:

In order to take advantage of new approaches to learning and teaching, as well as developments in practice to benefit our students we regularly review all of our courses. This course is currently going through this process and we will update this page to give you full information about what we will be offering once the review process has concluded.  These changes will come into effect for all new students from September 2025. Applicants will be notified by our admissions team of any changes.