Course in brief

The Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy MSc is for qualified physiotherapists wanting to build on their skills and knowledge, advance their professional practice, and earn a further professional and academic qualification.

This course has been developed with the International Federation of Orthopaedic Manipulative Physical Therapists (IFOMPT). Course graduates benefit from being able to apply for full membership of the Musculoskeletal Association of Chartered Physiotherapists (MACP).

You will develop your advanced evaluative and problem-solving skills for the examination, assessment and treatment of patients with musculoskeletal dysfunction.

Choosing option modules means you can create a CPE study programme to suit your professional or personal interests and aspirations. 

The course is designed to fit around your existing physiotherapy practice hours. Week-long intensive study blocks allow attendance for students based in the UK, EU and internationally.

We are known for our flexible approaches to practice-based learning, with course durations and intensities that can be adapted to your individual needs and outside commitments. 

Our high quality teaching and research are renowned, and have an applied focus. We have established strong links with specialist practice educators to ensure the provision of support and guidance both within the university and in practice.

Key facts

Location Eastbourne

Full-time 18 months
Part-time 2–6 years

Course graduates are eligible for membership of the Musculoskeletal Association of Chartered Physiotherapists (MACP)

We are a top 10 university for world-leading research impact in allied health professions, nursing and pharmacy (REF 2014)

Apply online

Please make sure that you meet the entry requirements before applying. If you have any questions the course team will be happy to help.

Apply now for your place

Entry criteria

Entry requirements

The entry requirements listed here are our typical offer for this course if you wish to begin studying with us in 2018. They should be used as a general guide.

We operate a flexible admissions policy – this means that you could receive a lower conditional offer than the typical offer, informed by our assessment of your complementary non-academic achievements and experiences. For courses that require interview or portfolio review, this may also be considered in the level of any conditional offer that follows if your application is successful.

Degree and experience

  • This course is for qualified physiotherapists. Applicants should normally hold an honours degree in physiotherapy but those with suitable alternative qualifications, such as a diploma in physiotherapy, will be considered.  
  • Professional registration as a physiotherapist is required, and students enrolling for the PGDip or MSc must be eligible to practice in the UK as a physiotherapist. Students must hold their own professional indemnity insurance.
  • We would normally ask for a minimum of one year's post-registration experience in a musculoskeletal physiotherapy setting.

For non-native speakers of English
IELTS 7 overall with no element below 6.5.

We normally require overseas applicants to hold a degree qualification in physiotherapy, which is equivalent to a UK qualification, and appropriate English language skills.

International equivalencies

International equivalencies by country
 
Albania
Algeria
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Belarus
Belgium
Bermuda
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Botswana
Brazil
Bulgaria
Burma (Myanmar)
Cameroon
Canada
Chile
China
Colombia
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Ecuador
Egypt
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Ghana
Greece
Guyana
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kosovo
Kuwait
Latvia
Lebanon
Liechtenstein
Libya
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macedonia
Malaysia
Malawi
Malta
Mexico
Moldova
Montenegro
Morocco
Namibia
Nepal
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nigeria
Norway
Oman
Pakistan
Palestinian National Authority
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Romania
Russian Federation
Saudi Arabia
Serbia
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Africa
South Korea
Spain
Sri Lanka
Syria
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Tanzania
Thailand
Tunisia
Turkey
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United States
Uzbekistan
Venezuela
Vietnam
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Visit our language institute

For English language preparation courses.

Visit our International College

For academic preparation courses.

Course in detail

Course structure

The flexible modular framework enables you to tailor your degree course to suit your professional and personal interests and aspirations.

You will complete two one-week modules and two three-week modules at the university, as well as two three-week clinical placements which can be completed part- or full-time.

The course is delivered in a variety of ways, typically via group discussion, case studies, supervised placements, lectures, seminars, and practical sessions in our Human Movement Laboratory, and Clinical Skills and Simulation Rooms.

Assessment is via the method most appropriate to your chosen modules. 

School of Health Sciences postgraduate education
This course is part of our School of Health Sciences postgraduate education programme. The programme allows you to sign up for one module at a time and build your qualification as you go. It also gives you access to interdisciplinary modules across a broad selection of health and social science subjects.

Post-registration students

Syllabus

Modules

  • Musculoskeletal Management – Cervico-thoracic spine and upper limb
  • Musculoskeletal Management – Lumbo-sacral spine and lower limb 
  • Research Methods for Healthcare
  • Dissertation (not necessary for award of PGDip)

And

  • Musculoskeletal Clinical Placement – Lumbo-sacral spine and lower limb 
  • Musculoskeletal Clinical Placement – Cervico-thoracic spine and upper limb

Plus

  • Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy: Exploring Practice

OR

CPD classroom

Facilities

Human Movement Laboratory

The Human Movement Laboratory is used widely by our physiotherapy, occupational therapy and podiatry students, and is also used for commercial consultancy. 

In the lab you will use the latest technology to measure and assess all aspects of human movement, joints, muscles, soft tissue structure and nerves. The laboratory has equipment for conducting cardio-pulmonary investigations including Cosmed metabolic system and spirometry.

human movement lab

Practical Skills and Simulation Rooms

Our practical skills rooms are equipped so that you can learn and practise practical skills including palpation, massage and manipulation with other students before you work with real patients and clients.

We also have specialist classrooms for physiotherapy practise, including manual skills and exercise therapy rooms, which are equipped with treatment couches.

Physiotherapy students

Modules in focus

Musculoskeletal Management – Lumbo-sacral and lower limb 
This module considers the holistic management of people experiencing pain in the lumbosacral region and lower limb. In this module students will consider the experience of people suffering from pain and dysfunction, and develop strategies to effectively examine, assess, treat and manage such individuals. Students will evaluate the theoretical concepts with specialist practical skills used in musculoskeletal physiotherapy. The module requires three weeks' attendance at the university.

Musculoskeletal Management – Cervico-thoracic and upper limb
This module considers the holistic management of people experiencing pain in the cervico-thoracic spine and upper limb. In the module students will consider the embodied experience of people suffering from pain and dysfunction (including biopsychosocial, emotional, political and cultural aspects). Students will evaluate theoretical and philosophical concepts along with specialist practical skills used in musculoskeletal physiotherapy. The module requires three weeks' attendance at the university.

• Musculoskeletal Clinical Placement – Lumbo-sacral and lower limb
• Musculoskeletal Clinical Placement  – Cervico-thoracic and upper limb 
Two supervised clinical placements take place in approved locations. In these modules students will integrate the communication and practical skills, clinical reasoning and theoretical aspects of musculoskeletal therapy and demonstrate holistic management of people with musculoskeletal disorders in a practice-based setting.

 

Physiotherapy-and-Management-Cropped-382x261-3

Research Methods for Healthcare
This module discusses the variety of research methods available and the selection and implementation of an appropriate research strategy in preparation for your dissertation. It enables you to develop specific research skills in the preparation of research proposals, project design, methods of data collection, analysis and presentation of research findings.

Dissertation
The dissertation will be in a topic related to musculoskeletal physiotherapy. All dissertations are individual pieces of research on a topic chosen by yourself, which you will complete under the guidance and support of a supervisor.

Study plans

Example plan for full-time study

October/November
Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy: Exploring Practice (one week) 
Musculoskeletal Management – Lumbo-sacral spine and lower limb (three weeks)

November
Work on ethics proposal*

January
Research Methods
Ethics submission and pilot work, potential period for data collection and writing literature review*

April–May
Musculoskeletal Management – Cervico-thoracic spine and upper limb (three weeks)

June–August
Musculoskeletal Clinical Placement – Lumbo-sacral spine and lower limb (90 hours)

October–December
Musculoskeletal Clinical Placement – Cervico-thoracic spine and upper limb (90 hours)

December–April
Remaining data collection and write up of dissertation*

*These elements are not necessary for PGDip

Example plan for part-time study over three years

Year 1
Research Methods for Healthcare
Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy – Exploring Practice (one week) OR a module from the School of Health Sciences postgraduate education programme

Year 2
Musculoskeletal Management – Lumbo-sacral spine and lower limb (three weeks)

Musculoskeletal Clinical Placement – Lumbo-sacral spine and lower limb (90 hours)

Year 3
Musculoskeletal Management – Cervico-thoracic spine and upper limb

Musculoskeletal Clinical Placement – Cervico-thoracic spine and upper limb (90 hours)

Dissertation undertaken alongside other studies*

*These elements are not necessary for PGDip

Study advice

The Academic Study Kit website now includes dedicated pages for taught and research postgraduate students to support you with the transition to postgraduate level study and introduce some of the complexities of conducting postgraduate research.

Find out more on the ASK website.

Students discussing their work

Staff profiles

Dr Clair Hebron, Course Leader 
Clair completed her undergraduate physiotherapy degree in 1991, after which she began clinical work in the NHS. She began study for a Manipulative Physiotherapy MSc in 1997 and became a full member of the Musculoskeletal Association of Chartered Physiotherapists (MACP) in 1999. Clair completed her MSc in 2002, during which time she also fulfilled a year-long lecturer practitioner role and started lecturing full-time. Clair continues her clinical work at the university's Physiotherapy at the Leaf clinic.

Clair is the social media editor for Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy: Science and Practice Journal. She was a member of the MACP executive committee from 2008–2014 where she had a number of roles including secretary, vice-chair of the Committee for Educational Approval, representative for the International Federation of Manipulative Physical Therapists (IFOMPT) and from 2012–2014 chair of the MACP.

Clair's research interests include low back pain, the effects of treatment dosage, health promotion, exercise prescription and person centred practice. Clair is also interested in research using phenomenological and phenomenographic methodologies exploring lived experience and the understandings and conceptions of physiotherapists and patients. In 2014 she completed her PhD entitled The Biomechanical and Neurophysiological Effects of Lumbar Mobilisations.

Clair Hebron

Colette Ridehalgh 

"I am currently involved in teaching musculoskeletal physiotherapy at both undergraduate and masters level. The development of students as independent learners is an essential aspect of my teaching.

"I believe that students have the potential to generate and develop new ideas and concepts at any level of study, and therefore I use moderated and supported peer learning, and encourage self-directed learning where possible.

"Practical skills are an essential aspect of physiotherapy practice, and I believe the key elements to ensuring a high level of expert practice is to develop students’ ability to understand the principles of these techniques and find their own unique way of performing these with rigorous critique, rather than simply by demonstration and replication.

"My area of research interest is in the assessment and management of people with nerve related disorders such as spinally referred leg pain, carpal tunnel syndrome and neck and arm pain. I am currently looking at the validity of some common bedside tests for sensory nerve dysfunction. I am starting to investigate sensory profiling of people with spinally referred leg pain and exploring how these profiles might affect prognosis."

Colette Ridehalgh

Careers and employability

Masters-level education is an important component of advanced and specialist practice. It allows you greater autonomy and to accelerate personal and professional development or promotion in your practice.

The course enhances professional and academic development, enabling graduates to pursue careers in research, lecturing in higher education, or expanding and developing their own clinical practice.

 

Physiotherapy group

Fees and funding

Your fees

UK/EU (full-time) 8,855 GBP

International (full-time) 14,580 GBP


Scholarships, bursaries and loans

We offer a range of scholarships for postgraduate students. Bursaries and loans may also be available to you.

Find out more about postgraduate fees and funding.

The fees listed here are for full-time courses beginning in the academic year 2018–19.

Further tuition fees are payable for each subsequent year of study and are subject to an annual increase of no more than 5% or RPI (whichever is the greater). The annual increase for UK/EU students, who are subject to regulated fees, will increase no more than the statutory maximum fee.

You can find out more about our fees in the university's student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

The tuition fee you have to pay depends on a number of factors including the kind of course you take, and whether you study full- or part-time. If you are studying part-time you will normally be charged on a pro rata basis depending on the number of modules you take.

What's included in the fee?

When costs such as health or DBS checks, or use of specialist materials are incurred as a mandatory requirement of the course they are included in your tuition fee.

You may incur additional costs depending on the optional modules or activities you choose. The cost of optional activities is not included in your tuition fee and you will need to meet this cost in addition to your fees. Before you apply check with the school that provides your course using the contact details in the Find out more tab (at the end of this page) for advice about what is included and what optional costs you could face so you can budget accordingly.

See our finance pages for advice about funding and scholarships as well as further information about fees and advice on international and island fee-paying status.

Location and living here

Location

About Eastbourne

Sunny, friendly and relaxed, there’s lots to do and enjoy in Eastbourne – music and arts festivals, theatre, galleries and sports – and all against the backdrop of the beach and the beautiful South Downs.

Eastbourne hosts some major sporting events, from Eastbourne Extreme – one of the biggest extreme sports festivals in the UK – to Eastbourne International, an annual tennis tournament where some of the world’s finest players prepare for Wimbledon.

Eastbourne has a close-knit community feel. From where ever you are on campus every place you need to go is around 15 minutes away on foot – the beach, the town centre and the South Downs. There is a great selection of clubs, pubs, restaurants and shops and always plenty of student-friendly deals on offer.

   Eastbourne Festival

Campus where this course is taught

Eastbourne campus

Located in one of the sunniest towns in the UK, our Eastbourne campus sits between the hills of the South Downs National Park and the south coast.

The campus has extensive sporting facilities, including a sports hall, fitness suite, climbing wall, swimming pool, three gyms, a dance studio and an artificial training pitch. For sport and exercise students, there are also exercise physiology labs, a human movement laboratory and an environmental chamber.

Professional-standard facilities on this campus include the Leaf Hospital Clinic, specialist practical skills rooms, culinary arts studio and accredited sports science laboratories.

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Accommodation

Eastbourne

Our Eastbourne hall of residence, Welkin Halls, is in the residential Meads area, next to the Hillbrow and Welkin site and within walking distance of Darley Road. The train station is about 20 minutes away on foot.

Aside from halls, you have the option of Unihomes, which we let out to our students on behalf of private landlords. We recommend Unihomes when you’re balancing learning with placements, shifts and other commitments, because they give you more choice and flexibility.

You can also choose to join the many students who live away from campus in private rented accommodation. We have a list of high-quality, university-endorsed private sector accommodation and can help you find housemates to move in with.

Find out more on our accommodation webpages, and if you have any questions, our accommodation team will be happy to help. You can contact them by email at accomeastbourne@brighton.ac.uk or by telephone on 01273 643810.

Welkin Halls

Welkin bedroom


  

Maps

house Accommodation
campus University building

Eastbourne campus map

Find out more

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Student views  

Laura Finucane

Consultant Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist, East Surrey Hospital

At the time I completed the Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy MSc I was a clinical specialist/superintendent of an out-patient department. I came to the course uncertain of my practice knowledge but I had a strong internal drive to enhance my clinical practice and career development.

I valued sharing knowledge and hearing alternative perspectives from my peers and this was crucial to my learning. The course gave me the ability to learn through rational argument and reflection. 

Being assessed helped to drive my practice to a higher standard and made me able to be more critical of my practice knowledge which helped to inform and change my practice. This criticality was developed through the questioning and challenging of my practice knowledge by peers and tutors; this was particularly useful on placement with the clinical educator. Through their direct observation of my practice and through questioning, I identified gaps in my knowledge and learnt a framework of questions to ask myself of my practice. Enhanced critical understanding of my practice knowledge led to an enhanced capability to be patient-centred.

Overall the process led to a critical understanding and a transformation of my practice. I gained the capacity to continually question my practice and become a critically reflective learning professional. I feel sure my confidence in my own ability has enhanced my practice and led to better outcomes for patients. Following the completion of the course I became a consultant physiotherapist.

Laura Finucane

Christopher Mercer

Consultant Physiotherapist, Western Sussex NHS Trust

I have had time to reflect on the impact the Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy MSc has had on me both as a clinician and in terms of my career development. Clinically, it has given me great confidence to examine and treat any patient. The emphasis from the course on critical analysis and focus on the patient's story and individual clinical presentation means that I am confidently able to tailor treatments to all individuals and their needs. I am confident to integrate research into this process where appropriate, but the real benefit of the course, and actually the real release I have felt from completing this course, is that I feel I have the freedom to be guided by the patient, free from the constraints of the limited evidence base that we have.

The emphasis on treating each patient like an individual case study, with close questioning, excellent listening skills and constant reassessment has revolutionised my patient management. Perhaps more importantly it has transformed the outcomes for my patients.

The detailed analytical skills fostered by the course have given me the confidence to be able to justify all my treatment choices in discussion with colleagues, both within physiotherapy and with medical colleagues, helping me to develop sensible patient pathways of care. This questioning approach also inspired me to develop my skills as a clinical educator, and led me to undertake the PG Cert in Clinical Education. I have been an MACP clinical mentor now for 9 years, and in that time have used the MSc course as the basis for my approach to clinical education.

These skills have proved transferable into the research and strategic components of my current role, as consultant physiotherapist, and have been invaluable in helping me to develop the role to its full potential. This approach has been pivotal in helping to turn around the culture within my current workplace. We now have a vibrant, questioning, forward thinking department, full of physiotherapists questioning their practice, and that of others at every stage.

I feel that these wider lessons that I have learned, especially the critical analysis of all situations, and the questioning approach, has given me life long skills that will see me continue to develop into the future. It is interesting to look back on the impact I feel the course has had on my professional development, and if anything, I feel the impact is more relevant now than it was when I first completed the course.

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