BSc Operating Department Practitioner (Graduate Apprenticeship)

Course facts

Award

BSc

Route

Degree apprenticeship

Length

3 years

Study modes

apprenticeship

Starts

September

Campus

Paisley

Where

Scotland, Scotland

Regulator

HCPC — approved

Everything above is taken from the published record for this programme. Rows that are absent are absent from the source data, not omitted for brevity.

Entry requirements

Notes

Passes in five Scottish National Qualifications including three at Higher, or four GCSE/GCE passes including one at A level; applicants must be in full-time employment with a contracted health board.

This is the typical offer, which is the level the university publishes as its normal requirement — not a guaranteed threshold and not a maximum. Offers move with demand, and a strong application with relevant care experience is treated differently from a bare set of grades. Almost every provider also requires an enhanced criminal-records check and occupational health clearance before you can go on placement, and many interview.

Outcomes

Where the national surveys publish figures for this course, they appear here. Small cohorts are routinely suppressed in the official releases, which is why a tile can read "not published" for a course that is running perfectly well.

Outcome figures are worth less on this kind of course than on most. Pre-registration programmes feed a regulated profession with a national pay scale, so a graduate from any approved course starts on the same band as a graduate from any other. Earnings differences between providers mostly reflect where graduates end up living and whether they take NHS or private work, not the quality of the teaching. As a reference point, a newly qualified operating department practitioner in Scotland starts on NHS band 5, which begins at £34,544 in 2026/27. See the full pay picture.

Paying for it

This is an apprenticeship, which changes the money entirely. You are employed and paid from day one, your employer meets the training cost, and you do not take out a tuition fee loan — but you also do not get the maintenance loan or the bursaries that a full-time student can claim, and you have to find an employer offering a vacancy before a place means anything.

The NHS Learning Support Fund is an England-only scheme, so it does not apply here. Scotland runs its own arrangements instead.

All funding and bursaries · rules change every academic year, so check the current terms before you apply.

How this course compares

There are 58 other approved operating department practitioner courses in the UK. Because every one of them leads to the same registration, the differences that actually matter are practical: how long the course runs, whether the award is a bachelor's or a master's, where the placements are and what the university asks for at entry.