Health and Social Care BA (Hons)

Program Overview

This four-year Health and Social Care degree program offers a comprehensive understanding of the sector and its challenges. Students delve into sociology, public health, law, and health inequalities, while customizing their studies with electives in various areas. The program culminates in a research project that contributes to social justice or an action-based project with an organization in the field.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

Develop the skills and confidence to deliver real-world research-informed health and social care on a degree course that opens up a wide range of career roles across the public voluntary and independent sectors. This course gives you a broad understanding of contemporary health and social care issues and their relevance to wider social policy legal and organisational environment both within the UK and internationally. Areas of study incorporate sociology public health law and health inequalities. In your second and third years follow your interests with optional units in mental health disability safeguarding addictions human rights and care of older people. There is a strong vocational focus ensuring you develop transferable employability-enhancing skills. Take this course over four years and include a fee-free one-year placement in industry where you gain practical experience build your CV and meet potential future employers.

• Only available to UK/EU students.

Outline:

Level 4

• Introduction to Research and Social Inquiry
• Career Planning for Social Scientists
• Childhoods in a Global Context
• Care of Older People: Health and Social Care in an Ageing Society
• Health Services Planning and Management
• Health Issues in Gender, Age and Ethnicity
• Sass Change Maker Project Dissertation
• Sass Change Maker Research Dissertation
• Safeguarding Children, Young People and Adults
• English Language Foundation
• Academic Skills Foundation
• Developing English Language Skills
• Academic Skills Development
• Introducing Academic Skills
• Introduction to Health and Social Care
• Introduction to Sociology of Health
• Disability in Society
• Refugees, Displacement and the Politics of Migration
• Work and Welfare in the 21st Century
• Human Rights and Global Governance
• Individuals and Society
• Skills for Work and Personal Development
• Skills for Higher Education
• Contemporary Society
• Professional Practice Year (Applied Social Studies)

Level 5

• Global Public Health
• Sociology of Health and Illness
• Comparative Welfare State Politics
• Mental Health and Society
• The Social Sciences at Work
• Addictions and Society
• Research 1: Collecting Data
• Research 2: Exploring Data
• Interprofessional Working in Health and Social Care
• Law, Society and Controversy

Level 6

• Independent Project

Assessment:

The academic skills unit in level 4 develops both students' study skills and Academic English skills required to succeed. The feedback given to students as part of the assessment process will enable self-assessment and development of learning and skills and promote progress to overcome any learning problems identified.

Careers:

The degree prepares you for a range of roles in the wider health and social care sectors including the not-for-profit (voluntary) private sector and public sectors. Typical graduate destinations for Health and Social Care students include direct work with service users in areas such as:

• Children and families
• Drug and alcohol misuse
• Mental health
• Services for older and disabled people and young people
Work in other areas of the human services includes:
• Health promotion/public health
• Welfare
• Community development
• Environmental health
• Health policy and administration
• Healthcare management
• Social enterprise development
You may also consider further study at Master’s level (Level 7) - for example the University of Bedfordshire's MSc Integrated Healthcare Practice and Strategic Leadership; MSc Social Work; MSc Public Health; and MSc Nursing (Mental Health or Adult).

Other:

• Over 95% of our Health and Social Care graduates are in employment or further study 15 months after graduating (HESA Graduate Outcomes, 2023)
• Our Health and Social Care courses rank 1st in their subject table for graduation prospects – outcomes (CUG, 2024)
• The Health and Social Care teaching team undertake a range of research studies as part of the Health and Social Care Interdisciplinary Research Group (HSCIRG).
We carry out interdisciplinary and community-based participatory research that involves service users and stakeholders in health and social care, with a focus on a co-production and bottom-up approach to involving all citizens in health-related matters.
• This course has the option to be taken over four years which includes a year placement in industry.
Undertaking a year in industry has many benefits. You gain practical experience and build your CV, as well as being a great opportunity to sample a profession and network with potential future employers.
• Only available to UK/EU students.
• The Foundation Year provides an opportunity to build up your academic writing skills and numeracy, and will also cover a range of subject specific content to fully prepare you for entry to an Undergraduate degree.
• This is an integrated four-year degree, with the foundation year as a key part of the course.
You will need to successfully complete the Foundation Year to progress on to the first year of your bachelor’s degree.
• The degrees offering a Foundation Year provide excellent preparation for your future studies.
My main research interests lie in the areas of Sociology of Health and Illness and Sociology of the Professions. I am particularly interested in professional work, regulation, and change.
• The graduate job market is a highly competitive arena.
As such, it is essential for students preparing for graduate employment to have a realistic awareness of, the ways in which the professional work place operates and the skills, knowledge and experiences that are expected and desirable for their passport and successful transition into graduate level employment. This unit builds upon the Level 4 unit which requires students to have begun their thinking about their intended graduate destination and undertaken a level of career development planning at the end of their first year.
• During this unit, students will undertake work based opportunities with an organisation or service that is appropriate to their degree subject.
The expected length of time for this placement is a minimum of 15 hours.
• Students will engage with personal development planning, to reflect on their own development as a professional and to gain insight into the breadth and complexity of graduate professional roles.
They will be encouraged to complete the Bedfordshire for Success award as they progress through the unit by engaging with the Careers and Employability Service in the development of their individual career readiness.
• As practitioners we work with children and families from a range of social, cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
This unit will encourage you to critically reflect on the nature of experience and practice in the UK and internationally with a view to improving services for vulnerable children, young people and families. You will be introduced to a framework of Global Childhoods, locating aspects such as care, education, health, support and well-being as constructed within particular social, political, economic and cultural contexts, and consider the different theoretical models and approaches through which this diversity can be examined. The unit teaching will make clear links with underpinning research and theoretical knowledge, to the study of childhoods, through international research, policy and practice.
• This unit will encourage you to investigate and analyse a range of approaches, and reflect on the relevance and significance of these for your own future practice in the UK and/or internationally.
Throughout the unit you will be actively encouraged to examine diversity and inequalities in childhoods. You will also be encouraged to reflect on your own experience and knowledge of childhoods in connection with the global and local childhoods you have explored.
• The unit aims to develop students’ understanding of key challenges surrounding an ageing population and introduce students to salient issues relating to the care of older people, including the health and social care divide, personalisation in social care, safeguarding, prioritising and meeting complex needs and the funding of long-term care.
• The unit also seeks to help students familiarise with social theories of ageing and major gerontological approaches, including the structured dependency theory and the life course perspective on ageing.
• By the end of the unit, students will have developed a critical understanding of key health and social care reforms and how health and social care interacts with other social services and benefits.
Students will have also gained skills relating to critical policy analysis and evaluation.
• The focus of this unit is to lead students to become interested in exploring contemporary issues that affect the planning and commissioning of health care services in the UK.
It will encourage students to understand the way services are resourced and organised to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse user group, workforce expectations and qualitative health outcomes.
• The unit is particularly relevant at a time when resources to maintain and deliver qualitative and efficient health care services, both in the context of the UK and in international settings, are stretched.
• As a final unit offered on the BA Health and Social Care course, the unit has a strong employability context that is aimed at equipping learners to advance into pathways in management and leadership positions in community health services, primary care services and other specialist health services.
• The unit will also equip students with skills in gathering, reporting and presenting health information for a range of stakeholders, understanding the role of evaluation, quality assurance, and basic project management skills.
• The unit will allow students interested in issues related to inequalities and health and healthcare to study and develop further concepts of health and disease from differing perspectives.
It builds on the knowledge you gained on core units at Level four and five with regard to critical perspectives on health and illness and the social causes and social patterning of disease. Using a case study approach, and drawing on key research in the area of discrimination within health and health care, the unit will provide you with a critical understanding of health and care as it relates to gender, age, sexuality and ethnicity in the UK. It examines the conceptual and theoretical debates within the areas of gender, age, sexuality and race and their implications for understanding health inequalities and challenging the problems of sexism, ageism, heterosexism and racism in modern Britain. The unit also critically analyses historical and contemporary policy and its impact on differing groups in society.
• This capstone experience provides students with an opportunity to join a community-based organisation and deliver a project that will encourage students to be reflexive about their role in social worlds relevant to their discipline.
They will develop skills through relevant partner training as well as project management, research and presentation skills which will make a positive impact to service users or the organisation/community more widely. In particular, the intention will be to create change and address inequality by responding to identified needs and promoting social justice.
• In order to complete this unit successfully, students will need to have presented a Project Proposal which receives approval as assessment 1 before the project is undertaken.
Alongside this, the Student-Sponsor Agreement (including the agreed final method of assessment and evidencing a clear risk mitigation strategy) and the Personal Development plan are required at the end of the first 6 weeks. The Research Dissertation will allow you to examine contemporary social contexts and issues by applying subject-specific knowledge, theory and appropriate methodologies to the analysis of your chosen topic and consider how your work can contribute to the promotion of social justice. This requires the capability to inquire into complex issues systematically and critically and thus allows you to move from critical acceptance of knowledge to the critical constructor of that very knowledge and its broader application in society.
• The Research Dissertation gives you an opportunity to develop a research proposal, consider the ethical implications of your project and to undertake an in-depth focused research enquiry relevant to your course and to your individual personal and professional interests and career intentions.
It will take the form of either of the following:
• Primary research
• Substantive literature review
• Desktop research - secondary analysis project that addresses a proposition you wish to analyse in-depth
• Content Analysis of policy documents, print media, social media, TV and/or film
• A Discourse Analysis
• The unit is additionally designed in part fulfilment of the University’s requirements for all award courses to provide opportunities for you to develop your personal development planning skills and evidence your abilities in independent learning.
The predominant aim is to offer you the opportunity to demonstrate your ability to complete a sustained piece of individual research on an appropriate topic in ways that also enhance your personal and professional development skills and that can be relatable to your future employment.
• In order to complete this unit successfully, students will need to have presented a Research Proposal which receives approval as assessment 1, before any research commences.
• You will undertake this project under supervision in order to maximise the opportunity to fulfil your potential in these areas.
• Safeguarding remains a relevant and core part of statutory and nonstatutory human and social care services that work with children, young people, and Adults.
Policy and practice in safeguarding is constantly evolving. It is important that anyone working in the numerous settings which could involve safeguarding responsibilities understands the processes by which safeguarding concerns are dealt with, what informsdecision making and considers the evidence surrounding a range of interventions in this field of work.The unit aims to provide you with:
• A critical understanding of current practice issues in safeguarding including distinctions between responses to adults and children
• An opportunity to develop skills in research and critical evaluation
• Enhanced employment prospects by equipping you with a thorough grounding in safeguarding which can be utilised in job applications
We will concentrate on the English you need for undergraduate level study in your chosen subject area, covering grammar, subject area vocabulary and the four language skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking.
• A key element of the unit is the grammar of the language, and particularly the verb tense system in English, because your ability to use the verb tense system accurately will be extremely important when you come to write essays and reports.
This unit will focus in particular on the grammar of the language.
• We will also focus on reading, listening and speaking skills in the context of your chosen subject area.
Beginning with short texts, we will practise each skill and practise it again, so that gradually you will see, hear and feel that your command of the language is improving.
• A recurring focus of the unit will be your acquisition of 'learner autonomy'.
This means your ability to acquire the language yourself, without needing a teacher's help. So we will consider and practise strategies to help you gain confidence in your own ability to increase your knowledge of and ability to use the language, including for instance guessing meaning of difficult words, deciding which words are important in a text, recognising differences between formal and informal language, and other strategies, so that as the first semester continues, you begin to feel more confident in your use and experience with the English Language.
• When you begin your undergraduate level studies, you will be expected to have knowledge of and ability to use a large range of 'study skills'.
You will also be expected to have some knowledge of the subject area you will be studying.
• All of the academic skills are practised in English, so you will use your developing acquisition of the language from the partner unit 'English Language Foundation' to practise and gain mastery of these skills.
You will also use your language and study skills as you learn the foundation of your subject area, putting the skills into practice as you learn.
• This unit builds on the progress you made during its partner semester 1 unit 'English Language Foundation' and increasing your level from that which you had achieved by the end of semester 1.
• We will recycle the tense system in English and other elements of the grammar system, but you will now learn how to use other aspects of the grammar, including the passive voice, as well as linking words and phrases and devices which enable you to write longer sentences but retain grammatical accuracy.
• You will notice that we gradually introduce more specialist language that you need in preparation for your degree and we will expect you to use and develop the skills that you gained in the previous units so that you are able to work more independently.
• This unit builds on the skills learnt and practised in its partner semester 1 unit 'Foundation Academic Skills'.
We will add more skills to the list, including summarizing and synthesising, argumentation, critical thinking and referencing and citation skills, as well as several others and practise and test them in the same way as with the semester 1 unit.
• We will also investigate the research skill and you will learn how to prepare a research proposal and conduct a literature review, and how to plan a research project, learning about the research tools available and how they can be used to conduct research in your chosen field.
• You will continue to broaden your knowledge of key current issues and theory in your chosen subject area, and apply the critical thinking and argumentation skills you acquire in this unit to argue for and against propositions you have studied in the form of in both essays and presentations and in seminar situations, ensuring that you are ready to step up to your chosen undergraduate course with a base level of subject area knowledge from which to continue your academic development as you progress to level 4 study.
You will be encouraged to identify your own academic strengths, areas for development, and strategies to support your academic growth.
• By the end of the unit the students will have gained an understanding of key academic skills such as assessment planning, how to effectively use BREO, searching for and sourcing academic material, learning to reference and how to construct essays, presentations and consideration of the differences between academic work and professional report writing.
• This unit is designed to provide you with an introduction to the history of health and social care services in the UK and the different models of health and social care.
Additionally, it will provide you with a foundation knowledge and understanding of a range of different skills, values and ethical issues involved in working with vulnerable service-users in the health and social care sector. The first part of the unit begins by tracing the development of health and social care in the UK and introduces conceptual frameworks relating to the provision of health and social care. In the second part of the unit the focus will be on the skills needed for working in the health and/or social care sector. For example, one-to-one work, group work and planning of work, professional ethics and boundaries, professionalism, etc. The main themes and issues discussed within this unit will be explored in greater detail at level five and six and so should be considered as a starting point to your study of health and social care.
• The Introduction to Sociology of Health unit is designed to provide you with an introduction to a range of social factors influencing health status – from socio-economic factors to gender, age, race and ethnicity, disability, amongst others –, and to a range of social determinants of health – such as unemployment, poverty and social exclusion, lack of social support and social cohesion, poor housing, and sexual health.
In addition, the unit also introduces you to sociological approaches to the doctor-patient relationship, the medicalised model of health and its alternative/complementary models, and the impact of technology in healthcare. Finally, concepts of trust and uncertainty will be studied in the context of epidemics and risk society.
• Within societies, individuals' chances of good health and care vary according to social position and exposure to specific social factors and determinants mentioned above.
It is crucial that you as a Health and Social Care student are equipped and empowered with a foundation sociological knowledge of health and illness and an awareness of the social patterning and causes of ill health. In addition, this unit will provide you with the confidence and competence to understand and critically examine such social factors and determinants impacting on equality, diversity, and inclusion.
• The unit aims to introduce students to the study of disability from sociological and psychological perspectives.
These sociological and psychological perspectives, with other understandings of disability, will be examined to equip students with an understanding and knowledge of how these frame social policy, education, employment, and social care provision. The unit will expose students to issues faced by disabled children, young people, and adults in a global society. This will involve examining how impairment/ disability is interconnected with other variables such as age, gender, ethnicity, class, stigma, social exclusion, social movements, and globalisation. The contributions of disabled people in society are important, and so students will have the opportunity to read and explore materials that are practical and political in addition to the academic literature. Students will engage in cultural and cross-cultural comparisons in the context of disabled people in the Global South.
• Voluntary and forced migration of people across the globe is an enduring theme of human history.
International migration is also a key dynamic of contemporary globalisation. Some authors have suggested that we now live in an ‘age of migration’ and that this is a defining characteristic of the twenty-first century. This unit addresses fundamental questions about the voluntary or forced contexts of contemporary migration. The unit focusses on the forced displacement and migration of people across the globe. It will look at why the protection of forced migrants is critical in the twenty- first century; what are the legal, policy-based and human rights issues involved; where are the world’s forced migrants; and how do forced migrants find belonging and recreate their worlds in the face of increasingly restrictive policy and practice. Throughout the unit, contemporary forced migration is examined and students are introduced to the complexities involved. The unit is theoretically and empirically grounded, necessarily focussing on inter- disciplinary research that is topical and relevant. The unit also addresses the practical and ethical implications of working with displaced populations.
• Why do we have to work?
What is the relationship between the work we do and the social benefits we receive? Who is included in welfare systems and who is excluded? Why? How will work and welfare change in the 21st Century? Covering all of the main areas of welfare: health and social care, education, housing and pensions, students are asked to think about the relationship between the (global) economy and their own lives. The unit draws together themes which students will be familiar with from Levels 4 and 5, especially welfare, migration and inequality, but asks students to think about these in new and different ways with a particular emphasis on identifying and explaining structural causes.
• The aim of this module is to introduce students to what is an emerging field in sociology.
Human rights within the disciplines of law, politics and philosophy are well-established. There is, however, far less on human rights explicitly in the field of sociology. This module examines the role for sociology in understanding human rights and the role of sociology within the inter-disciplinary field of human rights and human rights theory and practice. The growing interest in the idea of human rights within sociology is a reflection of the increasing prominence of human rights in political discourse in recent years as well as the need for inter-disciplinarity to address global and local challenges within a human rights frame. Yet, the idea of human rights has a long pre-history, even if that pre-history is much debated within human rights scholarship as a continuous or discontinuous enterprise.
• This unit aims to develop students’ critical knowledge of the origins, development and future of the international human rights framework.
It further aims to critically engage students in contemporary political and theoretical sociological knowledge, such as globalisation, citizenship, global capitalism, nationhood, statehood, borders and identities, post-colonialism, etc, to deepen their understanding of human rights abuses and solutions. The unit further engages with sociology to reflect on the relationship between human rights and social structures / processes, and in this respect whether human rights are the solution or the problem amidst global and local human suffering.
• Using thematic case studies, the unit will introduce students to some of the most pressing human rights issues of our time and students will be asked to reflect on the value of human rights, human rights institutions, NGO networks and domestic constitutions and processes for the redress of abuses.
• Overall, the unit will encourage students to reflect on the complex identity of human rights and human rights practices and fields, and all their promises and problems.
The unit will draw on current literature and research, teaching from people with first-hand experience of human rights violations and human rights redress and activism across different global contexts, and It will also draw from the international research that characterises the research institutes in the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences.
• The aim of this unit is to examine the particular perspective of sociology; how sociologists view the relationship between the individual and society.
To do this we first need to establish what is meant by 'society' and how it affects and is affected by the construction of identity. This will help you to understand the relative influence of social, political, economic and cultural factors on the formation of social structures and social identities.
• By studying this unit you will be able to understand the different social Issues, practices and institutions within society and the impact that they have on individuals.
It will also build your knowledge and understanding of how sociologists explain, resolve and debate sociological issues within social practices and institutions.
• This unit will concentrate on the skills that develop your Graduate employment prospects, alongside developing the skills needed for success in the workplace.
The unit offers you opportunities to learn these skills through a variety of workshop exercises that are linked to developing your employability and personal skills.
• To achieve this you will build on and develop further your knowledge and understanding of the skills and abilities required for study at Higher Education and those required in the work place.
You will draw upon the learning and development of essential academic skills learnt in the semester one unit Skills for Higher education. To demonstrate your skills development you will build a portfolio of evidence which will allow you to transition into level 4 with both the knowledge and evidence of those areas for improvement and those of success.
• The unit will help you to develop those soft employability skills and to begin to build your aspirations for graduate employment once you have completed your degree.
It will help you to develop self-confidence and you will have the chance to work on practical skills that relate to the world of work.
• Good study skills can increase your confidence, competence, and self-esteem.
Study skills are skills all students use to study effectively, whatever their subject area. All students have them; it’s really about recognising them, developing them, refining them and using them more effectively.
• This unit is designed to provide you with an array of practical skills in order to support your journey through the degree.
• The Unit aims to:
• Support students in identifying what skills, attributes and experiences they are bringing to higher education and what skills are required when taking a social sciences degree
• It will introduce you to a range of practical skills that will enable you to produce a portfolio of work which will provide evidence of your skills development and preparations for level 4 study.
• This unit aims to highlight contemporary social issues which impact communities and the wider society.
A contemporary issue refers to an issue that is currently affecting people or places and that is unresolved.
• The unit builds on the sociological theories learnt in semester one unit Individuals and Society.
You will be studying topics that are current and topical and will gain a good grounding in identifying and understanding those issues that those in society. These issues will reflect both national and international social issues. This unit will provide a foundation of knowledge for those students doing social studies degrees at level 4.
• Increasingly, employers look for graduates who can evidence experience in work settings of relevance to the industry/organisations they want to join.
This year-long unit aims to provide you with the opportunity to gain formally recognised and appropriate work based learning. It will allow you to develop your employability skills and reflect on your personal and professional development as part of a four-year degree course. The experience of work that you gain can be applied in your final year of study and will enable you to plan appropriately for a suitable graduate destination.

UK 2024/25

The full-time standard undergraduate tuition fee for the Academic Year 2024/25 is £9,250 per year. See www.gov.uk/student-finance Merit Scholarship We offer a Merit Scholarship to UK students, worth £2,400 over three academic years, which is awarded to those who can demonstrate a high level of academic achievement, through scoring 120 UCAS tariff points or more. Bedfordshire Bursary The Bursary will give you £1,000 over three academic years, or £1,300 if you are taking your course over four academic years (including those with a Foundation Year). Full terms and conditions can be found here.

International

The full-time standard undergraduate tuition fee for the academic year 2024/25 is £15,500 per year. A full list of scholarships can be found here.