Non-traditional routes to healthcare professional degree with relevance to pharmacy in Great Britain: a scoping review

OBJECTIVES: Workforce shortages cause disparity in access to health care for patients. Exploring non-traditional (off campus) routes to healthcare professional degree may widen access to professional registration. The aim of this scoping review is to explore the published literature describing non-traditional routes to healthcare professional degree, with relevance to pharmacy degree education. METHODS: A systematic search of the international literature was conducted using four electronic databases (Medline, Embase, Education Resources Information Center, and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature). Articles were eligible for inclusion if they were published in English and comprehensively described non-traditional routes to healthcare professional degree. Articles were collated and tabulated to facilitate a narrative analysis of the non-traditional routes found. KEY FINDINGS: There were eight non-traditional routes to healthcare professional degree found in the literature (n = 35) across five countries. These were: online and digital; hub and spoke; community-based distance education; degree apprenticeship; academic medical centre; articulation; accelerated degree; and longitudinal. Most papers related to the apprenticeship route (n = 14) and medical profession (n = 19). The main barriers to implementation included: regulatory and infrastructure complexity, adequate resources (staff recruitment; financial; technology), lack of targeted student selection & support, and cultural resistance. Facilitators included collaborative partnerships, adequate resources (technical support; funding; staffing), community engagement and need, targeted student selection, and measuring and sharing outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: This review found that the following non-traditional routes offer the most in terms of flexible degree-level programmes to enhance current provision of pharmacy degree programmes: online and digital; community-based distance education; and longitudinal placements. All future non-traditional approaches to pharmacy degree should be evaluated and published.