Speech and language therapist courses at Health Sciences University

Speech and language therapist training at Health Sciences University

Health Sciences University runs 2 approved programmes in this subject, which is unusual enough to be worth understanding — they are not alternatives so much as different starting points. All of them are approved by the HCPC, and that approval is the point of the qualification: completing an approved programme is what entitles you to apply for registration, and only registrants may use the protected title — “speech and language therapist” or “speech therapist”.

The offer here is at master's level, so it is aimed at people who already hold a relevant first degree rather than at school leavers. Pre-registration master's programmes cover the same regulated curriculum and the same supervised practice hours as an undergraduate degree, compressed into a shorter and more demanding timetable. The apprenticeship route runs in the opposite order to the others. You apply to an employer, not to the university; the employer sponsors the training, you are paid a salary while you study, and you do not pay the tuition fee yourself. The constraint is supply — apprenticeship places depend on a local employer having funding and a vacancy in the year you want to start. Across the 2 programmes here, course length runs from 2 years to 3 years.

A typical offer is published for every course listed here, and it is set out in full below. Read it as the shape of the offer rather than a promise: entry to these courses is almost always interviewed, and an offer is normally conditional on an enhanced criminal record check and occupational health clearance as well as on grades. Recorded start month: January.

Where you train shapes where you are placed. Practice placements on these programmes are arranged with NHS trusts, health boards and independent providers around the university, so a course in Bournemouth, South West means learning that patch's services and its referral routes, and meeting the clinicians who run them. That is worth weighing against a more distant offer: placement travel is real and can be daily, and the region you train in is where your first job is most likely to be. For context, 29 UK universities in this dataset train speech and language therapists at pre-registration level, so there is usually more than one geography open to you.