Program Overview

Our MPharm Pharmacy with Foundation course will set you on the path to a career as a qualified pharmacist.

Are you keen to take our Pharmacy course but haven’t taken the necessary A level subjects? Our MPharm Pharmacy with Foundation is a five-year programme that includes a year of foundational study and leads directly into the four-year course.

An MPharm is the only degree that will allow you to register as a qualified pharmacist, following a year of pre-registration training (see careers section below). This degree is accredited by the pharmacy regulator, the General Pharmaceutical Council, and has been designed to reflect the changing roles of pharmacists. We will equip you with the skills and knowledge needed for success in this constantly evolving sector.

You will learn how the body works, how medicines affect it, and how these medicines are designed. The course content focuses on the different areas of the body, such as the heart, and you will learn the chemistry, biology and pharmacy related to each one. This will enable you to apply information to patient care right from the first year.

We will also provide you with information and techniques essential for work in pharmacy, including law, storage of medicines, processes for reducing errors, assessing prescriptions, and professional behaviour. Our pharmacy practice suite uses professional dispensing software and real medicines, in order to build up your experience of key processes and handling substances.

As part of the course, all MPharm students will benefit from business and leadership lectures run by the award-winning Henley Business School. You will then have the option to invest in an additional module and assessment to gain a Certificate in Business Administration.

Additionally, you will develop your research skills throughout the course, and spend part of your final year working alongside internationally recognised researchers on a project of your choice. Past topics have included molecular pharmacology, medical technology, pharmacy practice, and drug synthesis, analysis and formulation.

New 2021 educational standards from the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) will be implemented by all University providers of Pharmacy education by the academic year 2024/25. The changes implemented by the GPhC include an increased focus on clinical decision-making in preparation for becoming independent prescribers at point of registration. The University of Reading has made the decision to make this transition in the 2023/24 academic year. Therefore, the modules currently advertised are likely to change to align with the new curriculum, but the new modules will allow you to achieve the MPharm Pharmacy qualification in exactly the same way and graduate meeting the new educational standards, to prepare you for a career as a prescriber. We anticipate that the revised modules will be available in February 2023 and will share those with you once they have been confirmed.