About

Advanced practice nursing is defined as a career pathway for registered nurses, committed to continuing professional development and clinical supervision, to practice at a higher level of capability as independent, autonomous, and expert practitioners.

The programme will be offered to qualified, experienced nurses who wish to pursue a career as an Advanced Practitioner, to develop their knowledge, skills and competencies.

On successful completion of the programme, the nurse will be eligible to apply to the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland for registration as a Registered Advanced Nurse Practitioner (RANP).

Cost

€10,800

Entry Requirements

• Must hold a minimum Level 8 (Honours) Degree or a recognized equivalent qualification within the National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ).
• Required to work in the specialist area of advanced practice.
• Required to have a letter of support from Director of Nursing or equivalent.

Aim of the Advanced Practice (Nursing) programme:

The aim of the programme is to provide an accessible, innovative, flexible and practice-orientated programme for nurses who wish to register as Advanced Nurse Practitioners. On successful completion of the programme, the nurse will be eligible to apply to the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI) for registration as a Registered Advanced Nurse Practitioner (RANP).

The graduates of the programme will develop an advanced level of theoretical knowledge and innovation to practice at a higher level of capability as independent, autonomous and expert nurses.

Supervised practice placement forms an integral component of this programme. The Practice Placement affords the student the opportunity to demonstrate proficiency within their advanced practice clinical roles within the safety of a well-structured and supervised health care setting.

Practice placement will provide opportunities for the student to integrate theory and practice in the assessment and management of clinical risk, with patient safety as a key factor in the maintenance of competence for advanced practice.

This will be achieved through clinical supervision and therefore a Clinical Supervisor (RANP/Medical practitioner and/or others deemed suitable by NMBI) must be nominated to support and assess the student through the process.

Students will spend a minimum of 500 direct clinical supervision hours with a named Clinical Supervisor in practice.

The programme will be delivered using a blended learning approach that combines online synchronous and asynchronous delivery and activities, with a number of modules that include face to face sessions. This means that the student can link into online classes remotely. It is anticipated that student will be required to attend classes for face to face session every four weeks. Live sessions can be recorded.

The Nursing Department at MTU offers two purpose built bright, open-plan Clinical Skills Laboratories, providing versatile spaces that can adapt to various skill/simulation scenario set-ups (link to Clinical Skills lab). The clinical skills teaching will consist of the inter-disciplinary team consisting of a network of clinical experts established through the development of undergraduate and practice based previous programmes.

In advance of the commencement of the programme, there will be face-to-face induction and orientation sessions. This will provide an opportunity for the learners to be facilitated with training and education in the use of asynchronous and synchronous learning platforms.

This programme provides students with an opportunity to avail of an optional module in Prescription of Ionising Radiation.

Attainment of an MSc Advanced Practice (Nursing) in today’s health care environment provides national and international recognition and eligibility to apply for higher level clinical, educational, leadership/management roles within healthcare organisations which are increasingly identifying job specifications with essential or desirable characteristics for the applicant to have attained a Master’s degree.

Upon graduation, an Advanced Nurse Practitioner can provide a full episode of care for a patient; assessing, caring out an intervention, prescribing medication and discharging. Advanced Nurse Practitioners are also delivering services to older people in the community, resulting in a better patient experience and removing the need to present at an emergency department.

The following practice placements are an example of the type of sites available for Advanced Nurse Practitioners:

• Primary Care
• Public Health and Community Nurses
• Palliative Care
• GP Practices
• Community Hospitals
• Acute Hospital Sites: Emergency Department
• Mental Health Nursing sites: Acute/Specialist