Advanced Skills in Clinical Assessment

Enhance your nursing or AHP skills by improving your decision-making. Gain the know-how you need to provide same-day consultations for patients. Become more confident as you offer treatment and referrals.

You’re a nurse or an AHP who wants to excel at what you do. This course will teach you to receive patients with undiagnosed health needs and to offer treatment or referral. You’ll learn to use what you already know to deliver advanced services which are usually offered by doctors and advanced nurse practitioners.

Many of the clinical skills you need for assessing and diagnosing injuries and minor illness are the same, but the diagnostic processes are very different. You’ll learn to assess and manage patients with a range of undiagnosed minor and long-term illnesses/diseases. You also learn to discharge them or refer them to specialist teams.

You will:

• develop your clinical assessment skills
• improve your examination skills
• learn to use diagnostic equipment
• assess common conditions and injuries
• focus on understanding systems and patho-physiology
• do clinical practice supervised by medical staff and/or advanced practitioners
• understand legal & professional issues of advanced practice
• get to grips with communication and psycho-social aspects of healthcare
• enhance your communication skills and record-keeping.

Course content

• Developing Clinical Assessment Skills — Physical examination of all body systems using diagnostic equipment; interpreting investigations.
• Framework for professional practice — Legal & professional issues of advanced practice; evidence-based practice; protocols; reflective practice; record-keeping.
• Communication and Psycho-Social Aspects of Healthcare — Influences on health status and health behaviour; communication skills; history-taking; record-keeping; clinical decision-making; managing change.
• Assessment of Common Conditions & Injuries — Assessment of common conditions/injuries.