Healthcare Science Practitioner Degree Apprenticeship

This Degree Apprenticeship is designed to provide education and training in cardiac physiology or respiratory and sleep physiology to enable you to enter practice as a Healthcare Science Practitioner. Throughout the course, your specialist knowledge will be developed in areas including anatomy and physiology, disease biology, clinical investigations, treatment options and professional practice. This will provide you with the ability to understand and form links between presentation, diagnosis and treatment of disease.

The Degree Apprenticeship has been designed and developed in collaboration with employers, patients and professional bodies. To access the Apprenticeship, you will need to be employed in a cardiology or respiratory department within the National Health Service, independent healthcare sector or private healthcare sector, in England.

The Healthcare Science Practitioner Degree Apprenticeship will take a minimum of three years to complete. As a Degree Apprentice, depending on your employment and discipline choice, you will study BSc (Hons) Healthcare Science (Cardiac Physiology) or BSc (Hons) Healthcare Science (Respiratory and Sleep Physiology) modules which include:

• Scientific Basis of Healthcare Science.
• Research Methods and Professional Practice.
• Specialist modules for Cardiac Physiology or Respiratory and Sleep Physiology.
• Instrumentation, Signal Processing and Imaging.
• Pathophysiology.
• Honours Research Project.
• Work-based Placement (includes work-based training and Apprenticeship end point assessment).

On successful completion of one of these professionally accredited courses, you will have gained one of the following qualifications (including eligibility for registration on the Academy for Healthcare Science accredited register):

• BSc (Hons) Healthcare Science (Cardiac Physiology) OR
• BSc (Hons) Healthcare Science (Respiratory and Sleep Physiology).

For employers with a payroll below £3 million: For employers who will not be paying the Apprenticeship Levy, the Government will pay 95% of the cost of the Apprenticeship training and assessment for Apprentices of any age. They may also be eligible for extra employer incentives.

For employers with a payroll above £3 million: Employers will be able to use their Apprenticeship Levy contributions towards the cost of the Apprenticeship using their digital account.

We will agree a payment schedule and discuss funding availability with each employer before starting any Apprenticeships to ensure the cost to a business is clear upfront.

Applicants must be in employment and supported by their employer.

Normal entry criteria qualifications requirements are:

• A Level minimum of BBB to include Biology and at least one other Science subject.
• Access to HE Diploma gaining 60 credits in total with at least 45 credits achieved at level 3, of which 36 credits must be in science based units at level 3: at least 36 of these credits must be achieved at Distinction or above with the remainder at merit.
• BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Applied Science grade DDM.
• GCSE English and MAthematics at grade C or above or equivalent is desirable. Apprentices without level 2 English and Maths must achieve these prior to taking the End Point Assessment.

Individual employers will set the selection criteria for appointing apprentices. Applicants with sufficient experience and other appropriate qualifications (other than those above) will be considered.