This module is the start of your journey to becoming a reflective and autonomous healthcare professional. Within the module you will begin to acquire the knowledge, skills and behaviours that will enhance your prospects, horizons and personal success, thus preparing you for the expectations of a registered professional.

The foundations of being able to carry out reflective, inquiry-based learning and critical analysis will be developed. Your work-ready and employability skill set will be enhanced helping give you the technological, digital and information literate underpinning expected of graduates today. Within the scientific framework we will help you begin to understand the importance of being enterprising and entrepreneurial and strengthen your ability to apply graduate attributes to a range of life experiences to facilitate life-long learning.

On campus study days, online learning and workplace reflection will introduce and develop the core skills associated with higher education study with an emphasis on developing you as a healthcare scientist. You will review the skills and qualities you already possess and how these can be developed with reference to how these skills relate to those attributes regarded as critical by employers, patients and the public.

Core laboratory and analysis skills will be embedded, including the requirements of safe practice and fundamentals of statistics as applied within the Biosciences. These activities will include the nature of the scientific method, types of data, descriptive statistics and the fundamentals of inferential statistics. Basic practical and numerical based competencies will be assessed throughout the duration of the module.

In addition to introducing core laboratory techniques, this module will introduce and develop your understanding of professional practice in the context of a practicing biomedical scientist within a healthcare environment.

You will begin by contextualising biomedical scientist practice by discussing patient expectations of healthcare professionals and grounding this with the professional development and statutory regulation of biomedical scientists and the monitoring and regulation of clinical pathology services (UKAS, MHRA etc).

Appropriate legal aspects will be covered, both in relation to autonomous professional practice (for example capacity and consent, equality and confidentiality) and also to employers and institutions (for example the Human Tissue Act and Authority).

This module is mapped against the Quality Assurance Agency Benchmark for Biomedical Science and the National School of Healthcare Science Practitioner Training Programme curriculum and contributes to the Healthcare Science Practitioner Degree Apprenticeship Standard by evidencing the behaviours expected within the relevant professional frameworks, and developing some of the skills and knowledge needed to deliver person-centred, professional care, personal and professional development, health, safety and security, and technical scientific services.

Portfolio of Professional Competencies (100%) LOs 1,2,3,4
A prescribed series of 8 professional and practical competencies developed within learning activities on campus, within the workplace and online.

1 Health, safety and risk (online test)
2 Pipetting competency (Direct Observation of Practical Skill)
3 Calibration curve (Turnitin submission)
4 Microscopy competency (Direct Observation of Practical Skill)
5 Calculations and scientific notation (online test)
6 Microbial manipulation competency (Direct Observation of Practical Skill)
7 Conduct, ethics and consent (online test)
8 SCORE analysis and reflection (Turnitin submission)

This module is delivered as a blend of asynchronous online learning sessions, on campus study days and work-based study. Within each learning unit you will be given a range of learning outcomes and directed through a variety of learning material (for example recorded lectures, online exercises or collaborative activities) to work through asynchronously together with an opportunity to check and develop your learning (for example through online quizzes, challenge questions or discussion fora). You are encouraged to reflect upon the academic content of the module and consider how this is applicable within your workplace.

On campus study days will be built around this module and will allow you to practice and develop the practical and analytical skills required by this course.

Throughout this module you will develop a portfolio of skills and competency-based artefacts that can, if you wish, be used towards your IBMS Registration Portfolio.

Your learning is supported by a group discussion board and weekly online sessions where you can discuss your learning with the academic teaching team.

1. Understand the importance of professional practice and accountability including legal, ethical and conduct issues. Learning, Reflection

2. Carry out inquiry based learning and critical analysis by demonstrating an awareness of personal responsibility for your own learning as a professional scientific practitioner. Problem Solving, Reflection

3. Demonstrate competence in the basic experimental and laboratory skills and approaches appropriate to the subject(s) studied. Application

4. Safely and competently undertake practical investigations with appropriate ethical considerations and develop new laboratory skills to demonstrate the properties of biochemical molecules or biochemical and cellular processes and evaluate the outcomes. Enquiry, Application

You will require access to a computer with internet access.
Access to specialist facilities on campus.

Reed, R., Weyers, J. and Jones, A. (2016) Practical Skills in Biology, 6th ed. Pearson

Nessar, A., Glencross, H., and Wang, Q. (2016). Biomedical Science Practice. OUP

Institute of Biomedical Science Code of Conduct
https://www.ibms.org/resources/documents/good-professional-practice-in-biomedical-science/

Health and Care Professions Council Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics
https://www.hcpc-uk.org/standards/standards-of-conduct-performance-and-ethics/

Health and Care Professions Council Standards of Proficiency for Biomedical Scientists
https://www.hcpc-uk.org/standards/standards-of-proficiency/biomedical-scientists/

Acadamy of Healthcare Science Good Scientific Practice
https://www.ahcs.ac.uk/wpfd_file/ahcs-good-scientific-practice-2021/

Within the module you will begin to acquire the knowledge, skills and behaviours that will enhance your prospects, horizons and personal success, thus preparing you for the expectations of a registered professional. The foundations of being able to carry out reflective, inquiry-based learning and critical analysis will be developed. Your work-ready and employability skill set will be enhanced helping give you the technological, digital and information literate underpinning expected of graduates today. Within the scientific framework we will help you begin to understand the importance of being enterprising and entrepreneurial and strengthen your ability to apply graduate attributes to a range of life experiences to facilitate life-long learning.