Course overview
In modern healthcare systems, leaders must be able to influence and support a multicultural workforce and lead innovations and improvements within their area of practice. You develop the skills, knowledge and behaviours required to embrace a global mindset and to lead and manage safe, high-quality and effective healthcare.
Supporting information for applicants
* Subject to University approval
Course details
Course structure
Core modules
Advanced Personal Effectiveness
You evaluate your personal effectiveness, leadership and management capabilities and develop an action plan to meet your learning needs.
Designing Ethical Research in Healthcare
Prepare for your dissertation project at master’s level. You develop your ability to design an ethical research project that could contribute to the evidence base of your profession. You gain the necessary knowledge and skills to design research relevant to your practice, including primary research, systematic reviews, audit and evaluation. You are equipped with the ability to negotiate ethical approval processes and complete documentation that allows you to gain ethical approval. Develop skills in producing focused questions, searching academic databases, designing sampling, data collection and data analysis/synthesis methods, evaluating research and the principles and practices of ethical research design.
You complete a practice-based project or systematic review. The practice-based project allows you to explore an area of your professional practice and implement and evaluate a change, or propose how you could do so in practice. You demonstrate advanced capabilities in literature retrieval and critical appraisal, to develop your knowledge and understanding in a topic related to your professional practice. Produce a 4,000-word journal article-style submission and a poster presentation, preparing you for writing for publication and presentation at conferences.
Leading Change and Managing Improvement
Learn to lead and manage improvement within a health or social care context. Develop your knowledge and understanding of tools, techniques and approaches to effectively plan and lead improvement and strategic change. Gain an understanding of the human dimension of change, consider why change can falter or fail, and examine the skills, behaviours and approaches to manage it. Write a management report outlining your strategy to lead change, considering the complexity within your organisation, how to lead ethically and how manage the human dimensions of any change project.
You explore organisational issues such as culture, business modelling and risk management strategies, and the impact that has on staff engagement, wellbeing and performance. Create a robust proposal on how you would use your leadership and strategic oversight to address key issues from a failing organisation. You arrange to meet with a panel of peers from your organisation.
Organisational Culture and Strategy
You are introduced to concepts associated with culture and strategy within organisational contexts. Consider the nature of working across public and private sector, exploring organisational performance, and focusing on the impact of different leadership strategies that influence organisational culture. You engage with policy and legislative frameworks relevant this and the role of monitoring performance. Identify how culture influences overall performance, applying key policies, theories and frameworks, and critically evaluate the effectiveness of your organisation’s performance.
Modules offered may vary.
How you learn
You learn through distance learning with recorded lectures and collaborative online activities.
You enhance your digital skills by engaging with online learning activities, communities of practice, peer support networks and a professional online presence.
Take part in action learning and facilitated coaching conversations to develop your skills in presenting ideas, supportive critical questioning, and facilitating reflective and solution-focused practice.
Independent and self-directed learning is a feature of master’s level courses. Your Final Project is a self-managed piece of work with support through 1-2-1 supervision sessions. You have opportunities to share your experiences and perspectives of working within healthcare environments and consider applying concepts to practice.
How you are assessed
You are assessed through a range of formative and summative assessment approaches, including a reflective essay, case study analysis, presentations, oral exams, management reports and a major project. The assessment strategy assesses your subject-specific knowledge, cognitive and intellectual skills, personal and transferable skills, values and behaviours applicable to the workplace. All assignments are submitted electronically.
Entry requirements
You should hold an honour’s degree (2.2 classification or above) in a health or social care-related subject or in leadership/management, or hold an equivalent professional qualification.
Applicants with other qualifications and experience may be able to apply for Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL). Academic credit may be awarded, where appropriate, for certificated learning: learning which has previously been assessed, and for which an award has been made by another education provider. This is Recognition of Prior Certificated Learning (RPCL). Experiential learning, the identification, assessment and formal acknowledgement of learning and achievement outside of formal education or training systems, may also be considered. This may include work experience, voluntary activity or other occupational learning which is not usually certificated but considered and recognised for academic purposes. This is Recognition of Prior Experiential Learning (RPEL). RPCL and RPEL can be used as the basis for admission to the course or for exemption against specific modules within the course, though this will have an impact on eligibility for postgraduate loans as these are only available to students studying a full 180 credits.
If applying for RPEL, you are invited to discuss their experiences and abilities with the Course Leader.
You should have two years postgraduate experience if you are an aspiring leader or manager OR be able to demonstrate leadership and/or management responsibilities within your role.
Applicants whose first language is not English will need to satisfy the English Language requirements, which are a minimum overall score of IELTS 6.5.
For general information please see our overview of entry requirements
Employability
Career opportunities
Develop core transferable skills, knowledge and behaviours to effectively lead and manage within healthcare organisations. Progress into senior and strategic leadership and management roles, including leading across traditional boundaries in complex healthcare systems.
Work placement
You are encouraged to seek out opportunities within your organisation to develop your skills, such as coaching and mentoring, understanding finance and procurement, and project management. Corporate Social Responsibility is also built into the course. You are encouraged to engage in approaches to support others and your local community in line with this strategy.
Learning platform
Our virtual learning environment (VLE) is the platform you use to access your online course
Teesside University online learning courses are delivered through the Brightspace Learning Environment.
Here are some of the benefits.
- You can use it on your smartphone, tablet and computer.
- And you can use it anytime, so that you can plan your learning to fit your own schedule.
- It's easy to use and navigate.
- Modules are set out by topics and themes. You can use the progress bar to understand where you are in your modules, and appreciate your achievements.
- We support you to become familiar with your VLE, helping you to start learning quickly.
- You get feedback, help and guidance from tutors throughout your course through the VLE, and you can ask questions at any time.
- Our tutors use a live activity feed to keep you updated about your course.
- You can create a student profile, collaborate with other students and take part in online discussion forums.
