The UK's first private sector University College in over 30 years is to expand into health degrees, offering students the chance to gain qualifications for physiotherapy jobs, careers in radiography, nursing or psychology and speech therapy jobs.

Last month, universities minister David Willets announced that London-based BPP will be granted the status of a University College, offering a range of qualifications at its 14 regional branches. Whilst it currently offers law and business degrees, the for-profit organisation has announced its ambitions to open a school of healthcare.

The BPP University College will be the first private university to have been created since Buckingham in the 1970s. Now a fully fledged university - the only one in the UK to operate without direct government funding - it too originally began as a university college.

As a private university, BPP will face a strict limit on its expansion, facing severe fines if it takes on too many students, though it will also be able to set its own level for tuition fees. Whilst BPP has the existing power to award degrees in its law and business schools, as well as its accountancy qualification courses, the new status will grant it higher prestige and the ability to conduct academic research or work with other universities to expand its range of courses.

According to Willets, private universities of this nature will help create a "dynamic and flexible" degree system. BPP's chief executive, Carl Lygo, said that his organisation views itself as a "pioneer in this field" and hopes "that [their] unique status and self funding model will lead the way in which other providers will be able to operate in."

"The education landscape is changing and over the next decade we will see a different picture emerging, where both students and employers will drive demand their preferred method of study and training," he told BBC news.