NHS England have commissioned the University of Manchester to develop a flexible Clinical Data Science Programme in collaboration with the National School of Healthcare Science and clinical partners at The Christie Hospital, to support NHS long term workforce development plans.
The full programme began in September 2023 when NHS England funded a significant number of places on the PG Cert for staff working in, or delivering services to, the NHS in England.
NHS England expects to continue to commission and to fund places on a Clinical Data Science PG Cert from 2024 onwards. A procurement exercise is currently in progress to procure a long-term HEI provider of the Clinical Data Science PG Cert programme from autumn 2024 onwards.
Applications for funded places on the autumn 2024 intake of the PG Cert are now open and will close at 17.00 on May 14 2024.
Read more about the application process for 2024.
Aim and audience
The Clinical Data Science Programme aims to empower healthcare professionals from across the health and social care workforce, from Knowledge and Library Specialists to nurses, AHPs, healthcare scientists, doctors and beyond, to apply data science in practice and translate data into patient benefit. This educational programme will support the development of data science, statistics, machine learning, and programming capabilities across the healthcare workforce, leading to a 60 credit postgraduate qualification in Clinical Data Science.
The Clinical Data Science Programme does not aim to train healthcare professional to become data scientists. It will give professionals across the board the opportunity to develop their data science skills and drive digital transformation in their practice. Participants will bring with them their clinical, health and social care knowledge and experience, and the programme will provide the computer science methods and maths, stats and machine learning skills to allow practitioners to make use of their data, adding value to their clinical work to benefit patients.
A key aim of the Clinical Data Science Programme is aligned to the NHS Constitution: patient benefit is at the core of the design of this programme, and the data science skills that healthcare professionals will gain through it will enhance their ability to work better together for the benefit of patients.
Read more about the programme on the University of Manchester website.
View the University of Manchester’s more detailed guide to the programme.
If you would like to find out more about the development of this programme, you can also contact the programme’s Project Manager, Andreea Chirvase on andreea.chirvase@hee.nhs.uk.