Why Accredit Your Course With AHPR?

The Animal Health Professions Register (AHPR) aims to raise standards within animal health professions and provide a comprehensive register of appropriately qualified practitioners to enable the general public and the veterinary profession to select the right treatment and a well-qualified practitioner for their animals. The key to the success and integrity of this register; is to ensure that all registrants are trained to a high standard and assessed against the day one competencies for their chosen profession to ensure excellent animal welfare. By accrediting your course with AHPR we can allow your graduates direct entry onto the register, this in turn will demonstrate that your course leads to professional registration and help to attract future students wishing to work in the animal health sector.

Accrediting your course

To enable students to have an automatic right to admission onto the Animal Health Professions’ Register course providers will need to have their course(s) approved for direct entry.

Please note the course must be regulated; nationally accredited by either a university or the national regulators for England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and/or Wales.

All courses will be required to adhere to a specific set of criteria* in relation to quality assurance to meet AHPR requirements for accreditation. These criteria can be found on the individual admissions policy for the appropriate subgroup.

The following documentation will be required to show a course meets the required standards for direct registration.

Documentation required:

  • A completed AHPR Application for Accreditation Form for the appropriate subgroup (see below)

 

PLUS submission of the following:

  • Programme Specification or Qualification Specification
  • Module or Unit descriptors (or equivalent)
  • A clear description of where clinical teaching hours are being delivered in the course; patterns of delivery or teaching timetables are required for this not nominal teaching hours. (requirements are defined in the individual admission’s policies)
  • Documented evidence of where the course meets the Day One Competencies / National Occupational Standards for the defined subgroup.
  • A list of tutors on the course with details of their relevant qualifications
  • The most up to date External Examiner or External Verifier reports.
 
 

All documentation will remain confidential to the AHPR and will be reviewed by members of the Education Committee; including the Chair of the Education sub-committee, the Education Adviser for the relevant subgroup and one other Education Adviser. Where clarification is required relating to an application it will be referred to the Education subcommittee.

Final approval will be reviewed and reported to AHPR by the Chair of the Education subcommittee.

If course is approved the remainder of the annual fee will be payable within 30 days If course is not approved a report will be provided identifying where further action is required to achieve the standard required for approval.

There is a right of Appeal. The appeals process can be found here.

 
 

Following approval

Once a course is approved, an initial Quality Assurance (QA) visit from AHPR to the training provider in the first year of accreditation will be made. This will include a review of the educational and clinical training, facilities and resources provided for delivery of each course offered by the provider. After this visits will be made at least biannually or as deemed necessary; frequency of visits will be based upon on any risk identified in annual monitoring reports. Any extra visit will be charged at 50% of the annual fee.

Fees for accreditation for 2023 are £600 per annum for Higher Education (HE) courses and £300 per annum for Further Education (FE) courses. These fees will be reviewed annually and are subject to change.

*Quality assurance criteria

FE Course providers must produce an Annual Centre Review Visit Report (this will be based on risk and may not need to be annual) and all course providers must submit an Annual External Verification Report / Annual External Examiner’s Report.

Course providers must develop and submit an annual Internal Verification Report / Annual Course Monitoring Report which should clearly show evidence of action taken in response to QA findings.

Please post applications to:

Animal Health Professions’ Register

30a Upper High Street,
Thame,
Oxfordshire
OX9 3EX

Please note details relating to the payment for application will be emailed to you.

Any queries can be emailed to: enquiries@ahpr.org.uk

Application Forms

AHPR Application For Accreditation - Animal Chiropractic and Manipulation

AHPR Application For Accreditation - Sports Therapy and Massage

AHPR Application For Accreditation - Veterinary Physiotherapy

AHPR Application For Course Accreditation - Hydrotherapy

Policy Documents

AHPR Veterinary Physiotherapy Admissions Policy

AHPR Sports Therapy and Massage Admissions Policy

AHPR Animal Chiropractic and Manipulation Admissions Policy

AHPR Hydrotherapy Admissions Policy