Pharmacy - MPharm (Hons)

Keele University

Our four-year evidence-based, patient-centred programme combines innovative learning experiences such as augmented reality with increased opportunities to practise your clinical skills. On successful completion of the course you will have exciting career opportunities in primary care, secondary care, community pharmacies and many other areas of practice.

Course overview

Pharmacy at Keele enables you to develop the values and attitudes required of a pharmacist. Pharmacists play a key role in the different aspects of medicine design, development and delivery, ensuring the safe and appropriate supply and administration of medicines.

Key pharmacy skills

How medicines treat medical conditions and discovering how the body works are just some of the features of our Pharmacy programme. Prescribing and clinical skills are a key component of the course alongside developing important communication skills so you can confidently engage with patients and work effectively as part of a multi-disciplinary team.

You will develop a solid foundation in areas such as biology and chemistry and build on these progressively throughout each academic year. You will explore key themes such as pharmacology where you will learn how drugs work within the body, and you'll also cover pharmaceutics where you will focus on formulating drugs in ways that can be administered to a patient. You will explore therapeutic areas which concentrate on medical conditions, how they are diagnosed and monitored and what treatments should be used to effectively manage them.

Placements

You will be able to experience the role of a pharmacist in a wide range of settings over the four years of the MPharm. This will include approximately 30 weeks of placements (higher than the sector average) in the community, primary care and hospital settings. Placement learning will be integrated with your theoretical studies on campus to enable you to achieve all of your learning outcomes and make informed decisions about your future career aspirations. Your placements will form an increasingly large component of your studies over the duration of your four years at Keele.

Foundation year

Our Foundation Year provides an excellent alternative route to Keele, providing a unique opportunity to better prepare for your chosen degree, and with guaranteed entry onto your undergraduate course once you successfully complete your Foundation Year.

This extra year of study can improve your academic skills, expand your subject knowledge, give you a better understanding of higher education and, perhaps most importantly of all, build your confidence.

Your future career

95% of Keele students are in employment or further study within 15 months of finishing their studies (HESA Graduate Outcomes, 2019/20)

Upon graduation from this course you will be required to complete a statutory one year Foundation training year and the General Pharmaceutical Council’s registration assessment to be able to qualify to practice as a pharmacist. From 2025 onwards, graduates will enter Foundation Year training which will result in registration as both a pharmacist and an independent prescriber.