Access to Higher Education Diploma: Medicine

Although work experience is not a mandatory element of this course we strongly recommend you complete voluntary work in a health environment to support your progression to university.

There may be opportunities to gain work experience with our employer partners.

We can support you through this and we have our very own industry placement and business development team ready to offer help and advice.

Across the year, we engage with local universities to support students who are making decisions about their progression.

We have we have working relationships with:

• Northumbria University
• Teesside University
• Newcastle University
• Durham University
• The University of Sunderland
• New College Durham
• Cumbria University.

We also work closely with a local care agency to support our students in gaining paid employment and volunteer work to support their university applications.

We currently work closely with Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust who help us develop our units as well as provide us with exciting industry placement opportunities both on the wards and in hospital laboratories.

Our teachers are ambitious, talented and passionate about making your experience at college the very best it can be.

They have up-to-date industry experience to share with you and the energy and enthusiasm to help you to get where you need to be.

Our teachers understand that returning to study as an adult can be challenging and that you'll have lots of other priorities to juggle.

They pride themselves on offering lots of one to one support to help you do your very best.

Students on the access course make use of facilities at the Baltic campus including our libraries, laboratories, clinical practice rooms and classroom environments.

You will have access to our Careers and Guidance team to help you with your university application and to help you prepare for interviews and assessments.

You can apply for an Advanced Learner Loan to cover the course fees.

This is a low interest loan with no upfront fees or payments, no credit checks and is paid back in instalments once you are earning a certain amount.

More information can be found here.

Once you have completed the Access to HE course, if you go onto complete a higher education degree course, the remaining balance of your Advanced Learner Loan, including any interest, will be ‘written off’, which means you won’t have to pay it back.

If you do apply for an Advanced Learner Loan you may also be eligible for additional grants to help with costs associated with the course such as travel or childcare through the Advanced Learner Loans.

If you are aged 19-23 and do not yet have a full level three qualification, you will get the course for free!

For one-to-one advice, please contact our friendly team who will be able to give you the right information. You can reach them on email at [email protected] or 0191 490 2294 or via Live Chat.

Please note: The fee shown may be subject to change. If this happens, you will be contacted directly before the course is due to start.

All courses will run subject to sufficient student numbers.

You will also have access to our dedicated welfare and wellbeing team.

Our welfare and wellbeing officers can offer help and advice on emotional support, relationship issues, coping strategies, time management and referrals to other services such as counselling.

Many of our students progress to local and national universities to study degree programmes.

Some of the courses our students have progressed to are:

• Medicine
• Dentistry
• Dental hygiene therapy
• Pharmacy
• Biochemistry
• Biomedical Science
• Radiography
• Zoology
• Biology and many more.

To search university programmes and their entry requirements, you can use the UCAS website (www.ucas.com).

The standard entry requirements are GCSE grade 4 or above in maths, English and at least two sciences.

If you want to study Medicine or Dentistry at university, you must have sat a UCAT (university clinical aptitude test) exam prior to your entry onto the Access course.

For more information about this, please visit here.

If you have relevant industry experience in the heath or social care sector or personal experience in a caring role for a family member, for example caring for a family member with a disability, we would encourage you to apply.

You must be over 18 years old to apply for this course.

For suitable courses 16-18 year olds please see our 16-18 offer.