Operating department practitioner courses in Wales

Studying to become a operating department practitioner in Wales

Wales runs its own bursary arrangements for health students, administered on behalf of Health Education and Improvement Wales, and the package normally carries a commitment to work in Wales for a period after you qualify. You usually have to choose between the bursary route and the standard student finance route, and the better option depends on your household income and your plans after graduation — work it out before you accept an offer rather than after. Placements are with Welsh health boards.

Registration is UK-wide. Qualifying from an approved course in Wales lets you work as a operating department practitioner anywhere in the United Kingdom, and employers in the other nations do not treat the award differently. What the nation changes is the money and the placement geography while you study — the student finance body you deal with, the bursary or grant you can claim, and the health service you spend your placements in. The scheme that applies here is NHS Wales Bursary Scheme.

3 of the 59 approved operating department practitioner courses in the UK are in Wales; the rest are in England (55) and Scotland (1). It is worth looking across the border before you decide — moving nation can change your fee position substantially in either direction, and the course itself qualifies you the same way wherever you take it. Every course here follows one route — undergraduate degree. 2 carry a UCAS code; the rest take direct applications.