Course overview
You learn about the care and management of critically ill patients admitted to an acute setting.
Develop and extend your knowledge and skills in the safe transfer of critically ill patients who require more appropriate care facilities. Learn about all phases of the transfer (pre and post), the ergonomics and best practice.
You are introduced to key themes through an online session, followed by seminars to assess your knowledge. You then undertake a two-hour session in the skills laboratories to demonstrate your knowledge using equipment.
Course details
What you study
- Clinical examination of critically ill patients
- Managing clinical practice - collaborative multi-disciplinary teamwork
- Principles of assessment and care in the acute phase
- The role of the critical care network
- Ergonomics of transfer
How you learn
You are taught by staff with experience in critical care and paramedic practice.
Seminars are mostly student-led, using case scenarios to prompt productive discussion and reflections on your clinical experience. Skills workshops develop your problem-solving and teamwork skills while navigating new equipment.
You need to undertake a significant amount of guided independent study. This is structured around further reading of resources relevant to key themes explored in that week. A Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is provided to support you.
The recommended total learning time you should spend on this module is 200 hours. 20 hours are delivered as seminars (both on-campus and online) and practical skills laboratory sessions. The remaining hours should be used for guided independent study, such as reviewing module learning materials, undertaking further reading and completing assessments.
How you are assessed
You must write a 3,000-word assignment on a case study, analysing and evaluating key aspects of a patient’s care.
You can receive feedback on a section of your draft assignment:
- no more than 20% for summative assessments, up to 2 weeks (10 working days) before the assessment submission deadline
- you can only submit a draft section once; staff cannot provide feedback on repeated drafts or new sections of work, but can discuss responses to feedback and plans for revising the work.
The two-week deadline prior to assessment submission gives you time to improve following the feedback.
Entry requirements
Entry requirements
You need to be a qualified healthcare professionals (qualified nurse or operating department practitioner) with experience in an acute setting such as accident and emergency, operating department, intensive care unit or stroke unit.
Employability
Career opportunities
This module develops your critical care core skills, enhancing your knowledge of physiology and pathophysiology and enabling you to make clinical judgements in your area of specialist practice.
