Health and Social Care via Study Centres BSc (Hons)

Understand the key issues that affect health, social care, and wellbeing. Make a difference to some of society's most vulnerable groups. Gain a well-respected qualification to open doors in the field.

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Overview

BSc (Hons) Health and Social Care will provide you with a detailed understanding of health and social care policy and practice. You will study the key contemporary issues that influence health, social care, and the wellbeing of individuals and communities, from a theoretical, policy, and practical level.

This Health and Social Care degree combines academic rigour with practical experience. You will have the opportunity to test your new knowledge and skills in a work placement in your final year.

Why us?

We are a university that is nationally recognised for supporting learners from non-traditional backgrounds and many students come to us with no formal qualifications, but with valuable work experience

Course structure

This Health and Social Care course is taught via workshops, small group work, lectures, computer-based learning, presentations, and independent learning. Your progress will be assessed with projects, presentations, multiple choice questionnaires, and time-constrained tests. Throughout the degree, you’ll have support from academic staff.

Year 1 (national level 4):

Social Problems (20 credits)

Learn to question the process by which certain experiences and differences become defined as social problems and how certain individuals, groups and communities become excluded. Examine the contribution sociology can make to thinking about and trying to solve social problems. Gain knowledge of the nature and extent of particular social problems to explore the relationship between definition, explanation, and intervention. Enhance your understanding of different situations we may agree are social problems yet can be difficult to see how they are linked together. Build research skills to identify the causes, impacts and responses to social problems in society.

Understanding Health and Social Care (20 credits)

Explore the central concerns of health and social care knowledge, topics, issues, and service users from the origins of the Welfare State through to contemporary society. Examine the complexities of what we mean by health and how inequalities in health are endemic.

Independent Learning and Professionalism in the Social Sciences (20 credits)

Develop your study skills and personal qualities required in an academic and professional context. Explore the social contexts in relation to the practical and emotional effects of transitioning into Higher Education and the impact of this on your learning. Reflect upon this, learning strategies and mechanisms of support to facilitate the transition.

Exploring Psycho-Social Theory (20 credits)

Consider the roles that biology, psychology and sociology may play in inherent individual behaviour, in order to understand the complexities of individual and collective behaviour in contemporary society. Interpret and apply these theoretical perspectives to specific issues within different areas of social sciences.

Applied Qualitative Research in the Social Sciences (20 credits)

Gain an understanding of the theory and practice of qualitative research methodologies and methods in social science. Discover the history of social science research and the philosophical and methodological debates which have underpinned the emergence of contemporary social science. Carry out your own research, investigation an aspect of contemporary social life, learning how to think about, organise, manage, and report on social scientific research.

Dimensions of Health and Social Care (20 credits)

Explore what we understand health to mean and the multifactorial perspectives which contribute towards this understanding. Examine biomedical and social understandings of health and illness and the impact of social class, gender, ethnicity, and place, as well as the impact of the media and how health and illness is represented therein.

Some modules have prerequisites. Read more about what this means in our Help and Advice article.

Year 2 (national level 5):

Core modules:

Health Improvement and Healthy Lifestyles (20 credits)

Study the concepts, theories and models underpinning contemporary health promotion and lifestyle behaviour change. Examine biopsychosocial theoretical approaches, values, and beliefs in relation to the application of models of health promotion and behaviour change.

Early Life Course Approaches in Health and Social Care (20 credits)

Develop knowledge of life course approaches towards health, incorporating biopsychosocial theoretical perspectives. Gain knowledge and a critical understanding of each early life stage from before birth through to young adulthood, including contemporary challenges which are compared to different historical periods and different geographical places.

Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences (20 credits)

Learn about the theory and practice of quantitative research methodologies and methods in social science. Apply the principles underpinning quantitative research to the analysis and interpretation of statistical data. Carry out your own research, investigating an aspect of contemporary social life, learning how to think about, organise, manage, and report quantitative research.

Working Together to Safeguard Vulnerable Children, Young People and Adults (20 credits)

Study what lessons can be learned by partner agencies about the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults, through the analysis of real serious case reviews.

Optional modules:

Medicalisation, Normality and the Body (20 credits)

Learn about the sociology of health, medicine, and the body, and examine the growth and power of medicine and its role in regulating our bodies. Explore interesting case studies of women’s bodies, gay men, transgender bodies, bodily enhancement and the racialisation of bodies. Examine the role of medicine and the body in creating a socially constructed idea of what is ‘normal’.

Sex, Families and the Construction of Personal Lives (20 credits)

Examine the nature of personal lives within modern society and explore how the construction of our family and personal lives have been affected by history, ideology, and the nature of policy. Analyse how the nature of the family has been used ideologically to frame ‘deviant’ family groups, personal lives, and personal relationships. Gain a robust understanding of social theory and a critical awareness of modern-day case studies.

Counselling Approaches in Practice Settings (20 credits)

Explore a range of counselling models to develop the theoretical, analytical, and critical skills necessary to work with clients and the interpersonal skills necessary to become a reflective practitioner. Put the skills and techniques learnt throughout the module into practice, such as interviewing, and approaches derived from counselling.

Year 3 (national level 6):

Core modules:

Practical Application (20 credits)

Undertake work-based practice in an organisational setting of your choice and utilise this experience to develop and reflect upon a range of generic, subject and programme specific skills, which you are likely to need in your future career.

Health and Social Care Dissertation (40 credits)

Complete a sustained research enquiry into a health and social care-related issue/topic of your own choice. Draw on your understanding of research methodologies and methods, relevant theoretical knowledge, and literature within your field of study.

Life Course Approaches to Health and Ageing (20 credits)

Build on the knowledge gained throughout the course with a theoretical analysis, taking a critical stance to the dominant position of biomedicine and policy directions to health, development, wellbeing, and illness in the adult and ageing population. Explore a biopsychosocial approach through the medium of life course theory and exploration of each later stage of the lifespan.

Optional modules:

Violence, Gender and Society (20 credits)

Engage with concepts and theories of gender and patriarchy to critically make sense of domestic violence in intimate relationships. Comprehend how theories of gender and patriarchy construct ‘love’ in intimate relationships in ways which produce inequalities and power. Analyse the underpinning models of criminal justice in England and Wales to make sense of how this system works in patriarchal society, to understand outcomes for domestic violence offenders and victims. Evaluate contemporary research including key theoretical frameworks to analyse how domestic violence is perpetuated. Analyse and present theoretical and empirical research to construct knowledge during the module.

The Clinical Gaze: Medicine, Disability and Confinement (20 credits)

Examine the expansion of medicine as an institution of power which defines and controls contemporary populations. Critically evaluate the history of medicine with reference to the construction of disability through the notion of ‘normality’ and ‘abnormality’. Study the historical development of key professions such as clinical medicine and psychiatry. Develop critical knowledge around disability and long-term health conditions as forms of social exclusion.

Social Entrepreneurship and Project Management (20 credits)

Examine the current emphasis on developing social enterprises to deliver services in the public sector. Explore the ways in which management theory has influenced the development of services in the public and voluntary sector. Develop and apply business and entrepreneurial skills to prepare yourself for professional opportunities after graduating. Gain the ability to apply principles and values linked to equality, diversity, and empowerment to practice.

Contemporary Issues in Social Welfare (20 credits)

Examine emerging social issues in detail and their implications for practice. Revisit and extend your understanding of the political and ideological context for social policy and practise responses to such issues. Develop a more complex understanding of human rights principles and explore current debates around the impacts of inequality on health, welfare, and economic wellbeing in relation to a contemporary social issue.

Substance Use and Society (20 credits)

Develop critical evaluation of social, cultural, and historical use of substances within society and how substances have been classified and regulated over time. Appreciate why substances are used and the relative prevalence and harms of both legal and illicit substances in the UK, Europe and internationally. Explore theories of drug use and addiction and ways in which problematic use is treated. Consider the biopsychosocial reasons and effects for/of using substances and the wider social and political landscape in which use may become problematic.

Please note, optional modules are subject to change.

Overview

Why us?

Course structure

Year 1 (national level 4):

Year 2 (national level 5):

Core modules:

Optional modules:

Year 3 (national level 6):

Core modules:

Optional modules:

Facilities