Health Services Management (with optional Placement/Project year) MSc

This module explores the principles, processes, and strategic importance of commissioning and financing within health and social care systems. You will critically examine the key drivers influencing commissioning decisions at local, national, and global levels, and engage with evidence-based approaches to planning and delivering services that are safe, sustainable, and person-centred.

Through an in-depth focus on financial management, stakeholder engagement, and service co-design, the module equips you to analyse and justify investment decisions that reflect population health needs and support long-term improvement in service quality and outcomes. You will also engage in critical self-reflection to evaluate your leadership and managerial competencies, using feedback and self-assessment to inform your ongoing professional development in the health and social care sector.

In this module you will be introduced to the purpose, structure, and design of healthcare systems, and explore how governance frameworks influence the way healthcare systems are managed and regulated. In addition, how they impact service delivery, equity, and accountability. The module also critically examines ethical leadership within complex health and social care environments. You will assess key leadership theories and their application in leading people, managing organisations, and fostering collaboration across public, private, and voluntary sectors. Emphasis will be placed on ethical decision-making, multi-agency partnerships, and responding to the external drivers of change in health governance.

You will also engage in self-reflection and evaluation of your own leadership style, identifying strengths and areas for growth. This will culminate in the development of a personal leadership development plan focused on improving your effectiveness in governance roles and ethical leadership within health and social care systems.

In this module, you will explore innovation in the context of health and social care in a global context. You will examine how innovation is driven by changing patient needs, policy reform, technological advances, and wider social trends, and how these influences shape the design and delivery of services. You will critically engage with key innovation theories, creativity techniques, and strategies for idea generation, while examining how to manage innovation in complex, regulated environments. The module also considers the role of leadership in fostering an innovative culture and supporting sustainable service transformation. The module also introduces the principles of social entrepreneurship and the tools needed to assess and scale innovation for social impact. By the end of the module, you will be able to critically analyse, evaluate, propose and justify new innovations to address real-world challenges in health and social care organisations and develop strategies to lead change and maximise impact.

The research methods module focuses on the principles and techniques used in conducting research. It covers various methodologies for collecting and analysing data, including both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Students learn how to formulate research questions, design surveys or experiments, gather data, and interpret results. The module may also address ethical considerations in research and emphasise the importance of critical thinking and evaluation in the research process. This module aims to equip students with the necessary skills to conduct their own research effectively, such as:

• Understand and critically evaluate the findings of management research
• Design and implement a management research project using methodologies and methods appropriate to research questions and objectives
• Analyse and report management research findings meeting academic and practitioner needs

Indicative content includes:

• The nature, extent and purposes of management research
• Management research paradigms
• Research strategies
• Research designs, methods and approaches
• Research quality standards: establishing validity, reliability and generalisability
• Sampling and Research Instrument Design
• Research ethics
• Research Data Management: collection, organisation and analysis
• Managing a dissertation research project

A programme of individual study and research project in accordance with established research principles
involving the completion of the following elements:

• Management Research Project

The module aims to:

• To provide the opportunity to apply management knowledge, skills and research techniques developed during
  the course to the identified area of management interest.
• To develop students’ intellectual ability in terms of problem solving, critical analysis and conceptual thinking.
• To provide students with the opportunity, and the enabling mechanisms to support their development towards
  independent learning.

The module is your independent final project, similar to a dissertation.

In this module, you'll take the lead in creating a comprehensive business proposal. You will begin by researching the legal requirements necessary to start a business and then move on to developing its strategic direction, including defining its mission, vision, and identifying valuable market opportunities.

You are expected to incorporate financial details, exploring funding options and developing financial forecasts. Your project also involves conducting a thorough stakeholder analysis, honing your networking skills, and pitching your business idea to potential investors through the report.

This module places a strong emphasis on ethical and sustainable business practices, challenging you to incorporate these critical elements into your proposal. Through this project, you will demonstrate your ability to synthesise and apply your learning to develop a well-rounded, strategically sound business proposal based on rigorous research and comprehensive analysis. This is your opportunity to showcase your entrepreneurial skills and innovative thinking in a real-world context.

This module provides opportunities for students to solve business case studies (including live cases) and justify the solutions that have been put forward from an available pool of different solutions and scenarios. 

Indicative contents:-

• Introduction to Case Study Analysis – mini, macro, and integrated business case study
• A modelled approach to case study analysis for decision making
• Assessing the challenges within the live case study
• Problem Identification & Analysis
• Assumption setting and strategic business planning related to case study
• Objectives, strategies, action plans, by function to time scales
• Application of key quantitative and qualitative techniques
• Monitoring, review & control planning for performance
• How to write a case study report
• Pitfalls of case study analysis