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Short courses for pharmacy professionals

Enhance your career in pharmacy with our interactive, online CPD short courses.

Expand your knowledge

Short courses are ideal for qualified pharmacists and pharmacy technicians looking for an introduction into further study at the University of Bath and a starting place if you are considering taking a postgraduate course and want to experience what it's like to study with us.

Created by Bath’s academics and industry experts, the courses provide an opportunity to build on your existing knowledge. You’ll explore new concepts and principles that affect pharmacy practice today, helping to advance your professional and clinical skills.

Course features:

  • Short courses across a diverse range of areas within pharmacy practice
  • Courses are £25 each (Mental Health is currently free), including the course material and a certificate of completion
  • Course feature reading materials, videos and quizzes
  • Course are online and studied at your own pace, typically taking 2-3 hours to complete

Registration and payment is available via our online store. Please see individual course information and registration information below:

Registration and payment is via the online store. Please see individual course information and registration information below. You can also register your interest in new courses.

Read the Online Store's terms and conditions.

Mental Health

This course will enable you to understand how pharmacy staff can play a role in supporting the mental health of their patients. This course is currently free and you'll get a certificate on completion.


Mental ill health may range from everyday worries and grief we each experience as part of our day-to-day lives, to the most bleak, suicidal depression or complete loss of touch with everyday reality. The causes of mental ill health are complex and multifactorial including genetic, social and psychological risk factors.

This course will provide an overview of the pharmacists’ role in delivering holistic care, giving you a greater understanding of how pharmacy professionals across all sectors can support patients. It is a great introduction to Bath’s full 11-week unit ‘Mental Health’, which covers this content in more depth.

Pharmaceutical Public Health

The Pharmaceutical Public Health short course is ideal if you want to enhance your knowledge of public health. Access this course and gain a certificate of completion for free.


This course explores the links between a healthier planet and healthier people.

Once completed, you will have gained an understanding of how environmental sustainability relates to UK pharmacy practice, and the impact on pharmaceutical public health. You will learn ways to reduce emissions across medicines, transport and healthcare, and be able to identify lower-carbon methods for practicing pharmacy.

The course provides an introduction to Bath’s full 11-week unit ‘Pharmaceutical Public Health’, which covers this content more thoroughly.

Answering Queries About Medicines

This course provides an overview of how pharmacy professionals can ensure they are able to answer questions about medicines.


Pharmacists are required to answer questions about medicines and provide advice about medicines to patients, carers and other healthcare professionals. This course will cover how to access resources to be able to effectively and accurately provide information to patients about medications.

This course is a great introduction to Bath’s comprehensive full 11-week unit ‘Foundation Skills (Secondary Care)’.

Polypharmacy

The Polypharmacy course is designed to introduce you to Polypharmacy and deprescribing, and how this is relevant to your role as a pharmacist.


As the population continues to live longer, the numbers of patients taking several medications for different co-occurring conditions is growing. During this course you will learn how to define multimorbidity, polypharmacy and deprescribing; the key policies and how they might impact your practice.

You will be able to evaluate the screening tools and resources currently available for managing the risks associated with polypharmacy. You’ll gain an understanding of the role of a pharmacist in medication reviews, and how to develop a systematic approach to carrying out reviews of patients with multiple co-morbidities and polypharmacy.

The course is a great introduction to Bath’s full 11-week unit ‘Managing Polypharmacy and Multimorbidity’, which goes into the topic in more detail.

Interpreting Key Blood Test Results

This course will give you a comprehensive overview of how to interpret some of the key routine blood test results.


During practice, it is important to understand the appropriate use of key blood tests in patient care, both to the patients’ clinical condition and the associated drug therapy. This course features four sections that will strengthen your knowledge of a number of the clinically relevant lab tests you are likely to see in practice. You will cover haematological tests, measuring urea and electrolytes, phosphate and magnesium metabolism and liver function tests.

The course is a great introduction to Bath’s full 11-week unit ‘Professional Skills for Medicines Optimisation’, which covers this content in more depth.

Sports Pharmacy

This course is designed to introduce you to Sports Pharmacy, including Clean Sport and Image and Performance Enhancing Drugs.


We will introduce you to key topics relevant to pharmacy teams working with athletes or sport, in particular clean sport and performance enhancing drugs. Pharmacists have a unique place in sport and exercise medicine, having many of the skills needed in sports pharmacy. This programme aims to raise awareness in how these skills might be effectively applied in this field and provide a starting point for further learning in Sports Pharmacy.

Interested in gaining a qualification with one of our postgraduate courses?

Search our courses Our postgraduate courses can be studied part time alongside work, and are suitable for pharmacists at all stages of their career.