Frequently Asked Questions

This course is designed to give you key practical skills to improve your current performance (at whatever level it is currently) and support you at any stage of your career. Increasing confidence in your abilities when managing day-to-day practice takes the way you come across to patients, peers and supervisors to a new level.

For most specialties, our PGDip Cin Ed qualification provides evidence of your ‘training in teaching’, which supports your application for higher training. The qualifying criteria for eligibility to apply for higher training programmes can become highly specific and subject to change in specialties with rapidly rising competition ratios.

Speak to your clinical and educational supervisors and/or contact the Specialty Recruitment Office helpdesk on the relevant training recruitment platform, to check whether the courses you are considering will ‘tick all of the boxes’ for a particular training programme you hope to apply for.

See FAQ 12 for information on run-through training

Yes. Our Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Education (EduQual Level 7) maps to the RCN’s Advance practice Pillars section 2 Education (either with clinical practice or education sector).

Our Postgraduate Diploma in Clinical Leadership (EduQual Level 7) maps to the RCN’s Advance Practice Pillars section 1 Management and Leadership. Advanced practice is a level of practice in which a practitioner has demonstrated their ability to work autonomously at a high level (level 7/ Masters level) across all four pillars of advanced practice. The four pillars of advanced practice are leadership and management, education, advanced clinical practice, and research.

We offer two EduQual level 5 Qualifications:

360 Theatre Access: Professional Award in Access to Operating Theatres: National Occupational Standard, for those providing product support in operating theatres.

360 Hospital Access: Professional Award in Access to Patient-facing Clinical Areas: National Occupational Standard, for those supporting products in clinical areas (including Critical Care Areas such as Intensive Care Units, Interventional Radiology Units etc) where procedures are often carried out, but not operating theatres.

To be eligible for a Healthcare Skills PGDip, you require either:

•  a university degree
• or five years’ experience working in the healthcare sector or in a clinical role in healthcare (discretionary eligibility – please contact us to discuss)
• any other source of RPL – please contact us to discuss

RPL can come from previous study, employment experience, voluntary work, training courses, including courses and qualifications you didn’t complete. If your eligibility includes any Continuous Professional Development (CPD) as part of your RPL, you must be prepared to demonstrate this through comprehensive portfolio of evidence, if requested to do so. As part of your Professional registration, you will already be required to keep such a verification by your own professional registration organisation.  See FAQ 5 for information on RPL.

Examples of eligible delegates for our Post Graduate Programmes include:

• Registered Healthcare professional with a university degree
• University degree holders with experience in healthcare
• Relevant training or incomplete qualifications, combined with experience in the healthcare sector may be considered

Recognition of prior learning (RPL) allows you to convert relevant knowledge, skills, and experience into credits that you can put towards a qualification.

Credits are a standard way of measuring learning.  RPL means you can start your course at the appropriate level and reduce the number of credits you need to study to gain a qualification. This is sometimes called exemption or credit transfer. For example, you could perhaps use RPL to start in the second year of a master’s or bachelor’s degree or put it towards the total credits you need to complete a course.

RPL can also include the CPD you require to support your professional registration and any other relevant experience (including watching and shadowing/following others) or expansion of knowledge which is documented, verifiable and directly related to the candidate’s role. Candidates should be able to justify how the RPL being claimed relates to this qualification, if called upon to do so. Learning and experience related to a first degree does not qualify as RPL.

Whether you can use RPL towards a particular course or qualification depends on how well your previous knowledge, skills or experience matches the modules on your course. Recognition of your prior learning would be entirely in the hands of the provider of the course or qualification you wish to take. Each provider assesses your individual RPL evidence and its relevance to their course requirements before deciding on the amount of credits they will award.

See FAQ 6 for information on sources and types of RPL.

RPL can come from previous study, employment experience, voluntary work, training courses, including courses and qualifications you didn’t complete.  RPL is also known as prior learning assessment (PLA) or Acquired Prior Learning (APL) and prior learning assessment and recognition (PLAR).

Types of RPL:

There are 3 types of RPL you can put towards a qualification:

1. Credit transfer

2. Prior certificated learning

3.  Prior experiential learning

You can put more than one of these types of RPL towards a qualification, but you as the learner must provide the proof to the provider who’s course you wish to take and have exemption for.

See FAQ 5 for information on RPL

Our Post Graduate Programmes are blended virtual learning courses and comprise a 2-day virtual classroom with pre-course study and self-paced post course online assessments. The qualification is built from the following units:

Hours and credits: 380 hours / 38 credits:

Unit 1: Educational principles and theories – 90 hours, 9 credits

Unit 2: Deliver clinical lectures and teach clinical skills – 90 hours, 9 credits

Unit 3: Acquired prior learning – 200 hours, 20 credits (see below)

The qualification achieved is equivalent to 8 months of full-time study on a Level 7 course.  It is possible to complete your diploma within our timeframe because, due to the eligibility criteria, you will have sufficient accredited prior learning (RPL) to fulfil the study requirements for the qualification.

See FAQs 5 & 6 for information on RPL

Deadlines for assessment submissions are given at the end of each course, the period is different for all courses.  Information on assessment deadlines for specific courses can be provided on request. Irrespective of deadlines given, we may accommodate extensions in exceptional circumstances.

It is also worth noting that the two virtual training days on a Diploma course are consecutive. However, if you can only attend day one and wish to attend the second day on another course, we will, with advanced notice, try to accommodate you.

Please get in touch with us if you require more information.

Qualification times set by EduQual (our awarding body), are based on Ofqual guidance. This means the minimum hours for a Post-graduate diploma are recommended as 370 hours of learning. Each multiple of 10 learning hours equates to 1 credit. All credits are identified on the Certificate issued by our awarding organisation, EduQual.

The credit value of our PGDip courses is:

Hours and credits: 380 hours / 38 credits:

Unit 1: Educational principles and theories – 90 hours, 9 credits

Unit 2: Deliver clinical lectures and teach clinical skills – 90 hours, 9 credits

Unit 3: Acquired prior learning – 200 hours, 20 credits

Our Diploma in Clinical Education meets the requirement of UK level 7 accredited qualification and as such meets the requirement of the ISCED level 7

ISCED 7: Masters degree or equivalent programmes to provide advanced academic and/or professional knowledge, skills and competencies leading to a second degree or equivalent qualification. These programmes are theoretically-based but may include practical components and are traditionally offered at universities and other tertiary educational institutions.

Masters – When considering awarding credits for HCS qualifications towards any specific Masters Degree, Universities consider these three overlapping elements:

1. The relevance of the HCS course to the Masters being applied for.

Each University is an institution in their own right and will award credits on an individual basis at their discretion. The university will review your qualification transcript, and where the HCS course units are covered wholly or in part by their Masters Course, they will award an appropriate number of credit exemptions accordingly.

2. The number of credits inherent in the HCS course

Hours and credits: 380 hours / 38 credits:

Unit 1: Educational principles and theories – 90 hours, 9 credits

Unit 2: Deliver clinical lectures and teach clinical skills – 90 hours, 9 credits

Unit 3: Acquired prior learning – 200 hours, 20 credits (see below)

3. Your professional and educational background

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) portfolio for Unit 3 (Acquired Prior Learning), which requires you to have 200 hours of verifiable CPD available if requested by the Awarding Organisation. This equates to 4 years of CPD, for medical practitioners who are required to complete 50 hours per year to maintain their professional registration, for example. For non-registered healthcare workers, CPD for the APL unit must be relevant to Education in their professional role to be considered.

Historically the majority of universities have given exemptions for the whole credit value of our courses where the applicant is medically qualified and the HCS course is relevant to the Masters degree. However, it must be emphasised that this is a discretionary process, with each student being assessed individually – not only can students with similar educational backgrounds be awarded different credit exemptions at the same university, but also different universities offering the same qualification titles may have different awarding criteria. Educational organisations, such as ours, outside of the university framework do not have any input to the universities’ exemption panels.

If you wish to use a HCS qualification to obtain a Masters Degree from a university, you will need your qualification transcript.

Fellowships – We are an international organisation, and as such, our delegates go on to seek further qualifications (and credit exemptions/ recognition) from many other educational organisations across the world. When it comes to applying for fellowships with other higher education organisations (e.g. Higher Education Academy/Advance HE), their processes are so variable that we are unable to give specific guidance.  However please approach them directly to establish whether they will recognise your PGDip Clin Ed qualification for eligibility. Whilst we have no input in these decisions, the transcripts of your qualification(s) will be available if required.

See FAQ 14 for information on obtaining your transcript

The requirements for run-through training vary between speciality and over time. You should therefore establish exactly what specification is required by your training programme. Your clinical and educational supervisors may be able to help you, and/or contact the Specialty Recruitment Office helpdesk on the training recruitment platform for the programme you hope to apply for.

Our teaching qualification, Clinical Education PG Dip is a EQF Level 7 course and meets the requirement of the ISCED level 7

Hours and credits: 380 hours / 38 credits:

Unit 1: Educational principles and theories – 90 hours, 9 credits

Unit 2: Deliver clinical lectures and teach clinical skills – 90 hours, 9 credits

Unit 3: Acquired prior learning – 200 hours, 20 credits

The qualification achieved is equivalent to 8 months of full-time study on a Level 7 course.  It is possible to complete your diploma within our timeframe because, due to the eligibility criteria, you will have sufficient accredited prior learning (RPL) to fulfil the study requirements for the qualification.

While Healthcare Skills Training International is a Corporate Partner of AoME, and AoME members teach on our courses, our courses are not AoME accredited.

A qualification transcript, can be requested from EduQual who are the Awarding Organisation that issues the certificate. Contact them by email at: info@eduqual.org.uk

These documents are sometimes referred to as Notifications of Performance (NOP) or in Scotland, Records of Attainment (ROA). These documents should list all the modules or subjects you studied in each year, the marks or grades you achieved for each module and the UK credit value and level of each module. It should be stamped or signed by the registry of the Awarding Organisation. Comparing qualification levels between countries and regions can be confusing. Please see the equivalences table below.

The registered qualification title will be shown on your certificate.

For example:

For the Diploma in Clinical Education, it will read: Diploma in Clinical Education (EQF Level 7).

You can use the following post-nominal: PGDip Clinical Education.

The post-nominals for your course will be confirmed on successful completion. If you require any prior confirmation of your qualification title or the post-nominal for that qualification, please contact us at course@healthcareskills.com

EduQual is a regulated awarding body, recognised for its role in ensuring high academic and professional standards by globally recognised national qualifications regulators in the UK. While EduQual maintains its own affiliations with a number of UK universities for specific qualifications, its primary function lies in the certification of programmes delivered by HealthCare Skills International and other independent adult training centres. The certification process is underpinned by a rigorous external approval system, designed to evaluate and verify the quality and relevance of the courses being offered. Furthermore, EduQual ensures the integrity of its certifications through a robust process of external moderation, assessing completed courses to confirm they meet the required academic and professional benchmarks. This dual focus on external approval and moderation underscores EduQual’s commitment to maintaining excellence and consistency in the qualifications it endorses.

Each deanery operates as a component of a university. Your application for ST3 training will be via a specific deanery within a university. Exemptions for prior qualifications are awarded by individual universities, based on a thorough evaluation of the qualification’s level, credit value, and alignment with the university’s learning outcomes.

Universities assess whether the qualification content satisfies any of their course learning outcomes and typically grant some level of exemption. Even if the qualification does not directly align with their learning outcomes, universities often recognise the effort and dedication required to achieve it. For example, they may consider the total study hours involved (calculated as credits multiplied by 10) and provide exemptions accordingly. However, universities function as independent institutions, and their decisions can vary significantly. One learner might receive full exemption, while another may receive only partial exemption or none at all for the same course at the same university because exemptions are awarded solely on the specific learner’s case and are individually assessed.

Unless there is a pre-existing agreement between Health and Care Sciences (HCS) and a university which equates a course to a specific exemption level, it is this individualised assessment process which is used. It is important to note that it is the qualifications themselves, not HCS, which are credit-rated. The credit rating reflects the estimated time required for an average learner to complete the course, calculated as total hours divided by 10, with 10 hours corresponding to one credit.