Adult health, social care and wellbeing
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Health and social care is everyone’s business. Whether using a service or being cared for by family or friends, we want skilled and understanding people who can work in partnership with us to meet our needs. Using online activities to explore real-life case material with up-to-date research, policy and practice you'll learn about how adult health and social care is organised, delivered, and experienced across a range of sectors. Whether you’re involved in paid or unpaid work, use health and social care services yourself, or simply have a general interest, this course is designed to deepen your understanding and develop your practice.
Fees 2012
See fees and funding options for study from September 2012.
Course facts
An undergraduate course in Health and Social Care.
| About this course: | |
|---|---|
| Course code | K217 |
| Credits | 60 |
| OU Level | 2 |
| SCQF level | 9 |
| FHEQ level | 5 |
| Course work includes: |
|---|
| 5 Tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) |
| End-of-module assessment |
| No residential school |
Register for the course
This course is available for study in the countries shown. Fees and financial support may vary by country.
What you will study
Over the last twenty years, the pace of change in the UK health and social care sector has been phenomenal – and looks set to continue. The sector is increasingly diverse and expecting greater choice, increased partnership, joined up service provision and expert practice. All practitioners are required to exercise leadership and take responsibility for the development of their services as well as their practice.
As such, twenty-first century health and social care is very much a live and constantly changing field. It presents challenges that play out in practice settings as well as everyday life, in research, policy and the media. Whether or not you work in health and social care, staying up-to-date and responding to these changing demands is a challenge that this course will help you meet. You will learn to work with key approaches in, and explanations of, health and social care, personal accounts, detailed case studies, official documents, and policy and research. You will build information and communication technology (ICT) skills in order to remain abreast of the field. While the course has been carefully written to ensure it is accessible to those new to academic study and health and social care, it is a progression from Level 1 work.
Following an online learning guide, you will work with a combination of print, online resources and audio-visual materials designed to get you thinking and to build your understanding and skills. You will be encouraged and supported to bring together core themes and ideas in a way that is relevant to you and your specific interests. You will be taught quickly and simply how to use ICT to access, analyse and communicate current issues, as well as going online to communicate with other students.
Block 1: Health and social care in context situates health and social care within the particular cultural and societal contexts that influence views of quality of life, good and ill health, wellbeing and the need for care. Positive and negative caring practices are examined. You will explore how different services work together to constitute the health and social care sector. Core ideas of power and participation, identity and difference, and critical practice run through the discussion. Case material will explore a range of areas in health and social care.
Block 2: Exploring identity and difference looks at the underlying principles that shape identity and difference, drawing on case material on disability. Such issues are particularly relevant to person-centred practice. Health, ill-health, disability and identity are interrelated and issues of stigma, normality and language will be explored.
Block 3: Exploring power and participation considers the voice of the service user, the growth of advocacy within health and social care, the complexity of decision-making and the challenges posed within inter-agency working. It uses case material from the broad area of sexual and reproductive health to critically examine these issues, encouraging you to reflect on your own practice and/or experience to understand why power and facilitating equal participation are pivotal issues within health and social care.
Block 4: Exploring critical practice considers how the ambiguous, risky and complex nature of health and social care play out at the individual, organisational and national level. You will consolidate your skills in using resources such as theoretical material, ethical frameworks, codes of practice, risk assessment principles and quality assurance mechanisms to understand needs and identify how these can be met at the individual, local and national level. Case material relating to people with long-term conditions will be used to explore these issues.
Blocks 5 and 6 take the general principles covered in Blocks 1 to 4 and use them to explore one situation in depth. Consolidating the skills you developed earlier in the course, you will be guided through the production of a professionally relevant report. You will have the choice to focus on disability, sexual and reproductive health, or long-term health conditions, and relate one of these issues to your specific context. The information literacy and ICT skills developed throughout the course will be consolidated in this final section of the course.
The case material on leadership, disability, sexual and reproductive health, and long-term health conditions are used to bring the course ideas to life. However, the course is designed to support the application of skills and understanding to a wide range of health and social care contexts and users.
Day School
You will be provided with a day school to prepare you for the end-of-module assessment (EMA). If you are unable to attend the day school, we recommend you to take an alternative learning experience (ALE) that will be provided and can be studied from home.
Vocational relevance
This course has been designed for people in health and social care working in frontline, administrative and leadership positions. However, you do not have to work in health and social care to take this course as it recognises the interests of those who are not in paid positions hoping to enter the sector or are working in voluntary roles, providing care to friends and families or using services. Building your career in health and social care is addressed by content that draws from current policy imperatives and reflects the Level 4 National Occupational Standards, the core elements of the Knowledge and Skills Framework, and ICT skill benchmark statements from health and social care.
Entry
You are not required to have done any study in this area before, but bear in mind that this is a Level 2 course.
Our Level 1 course An introduction to health and social care (K101) would be an ideal preparation although the K217 study material is designed to be accessible to those new to this area. The ICT skills developed in K101 would be an asset. However this course does provide the opportunity to quickly develop the necessary skills in the first weeks of study.
If you have any doubt about the suitability of the course, please contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.
Preparatory work
You will receive guidance of how to get started online in your first mailing. This will provide you with information on using your computer for OU study and working with the Computing Guide. For example, it explains how to access and use your website and online discussion forums. If you have time before the course starts, you can work through this and explore all the online services available to you.
If you have a disability or additional requirement
Much of this course is delivered online and includes the use of online forums, library resources and audio-visual materials. However the text book and written resources are also available in print and the audio-visual material on DVD. Transcripts of any audio components and Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) versions of printed material are available. Some Adobe PDF components may not be available or fully accessible using a screen reader and scientific or diagrammatic materials may be particularly difficult to read in this way. Other alternative formats of the study materials may be available in the future. Our Services for disabled students website has the latest information about availability.
If you are a new student, or new to courses using a computer or the internet, you will need to inform us of your particular needs as soon as possible, as some of our support services may take several weeks to arrange. Details of how to do this and our range of support services are described in our publication Meeting Your Needs.
You can also find information about accessible study materials, financial support and the Disabled Students' Allowance, equipment and other services, on our Services for disabled students website. It also includes our contact details for advice and support both before you register and while you are studying.
Study materials
What's included
You will work through the course using an online learning guide which will set you activities to carry out using the text book, audio-visual material and internet resources. You should expect to use the internet at least a few times a week when studying this course.
However, we recognise that not all students wish to study entirely online and so the text book and some other written resources are available both in print and online. Audio-visual material is available both online and on DVD. Library resources and forums for online student discussion are available through the website.
You will need
The audio-visual components of this course will be embedded within the learning guide. DVDs are also available for those with limited internet access. If you want to view this on a computer, it will need a DVD-ROM drive and software for viewing DVDs.
Computing requirements
This course includes online computer activities – you can access these using a web browser that can play Flash and Shockwave.
You will need internet access and a computer. If you have purchased a new computer since 2005 it should meet your course computing requirements. Check our Technical Requirements section if your computer is older than this or is otherwise unusual.
Teaching and assessment
Support from your tutor
You will have a tutor who will help you with the study material. They will also mark and comment on your written work, and you can ask them for advice and guidance. In addition to face-to-face tutorials and the day school, part of your tuition is delivered online through online tutor group activities. So, as well as face-to-face contact, you will also have access to your tutor through email and online discussion forums. Phone communication may also be used. If you are new to the OU, you will find that your tutor is particularly concerned to help you with your study methods.
Contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service if you want to know more about study with The Open University before you register.
Assessment
The assessment details for this course can be found in the facts box above.
You will be expected to submit your tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) online through the eTMA system unless there are some difficulties which prevent you from doing so. In these circumstances, you must negotiate with your tutor to get their agreement to submit your assignment on paper.
Students also studied
Students who studied this course also studied at some time:
Future availability
The details given here are for the course that starts in October 2012 and February 2013. We expect it to be available twice a year.
Fees 2012
See fees and funding options for study from September 2012.
Course facts
An undergraduate course in Health and Social Care.
| About this course: | |
|---|---|
| Course code | K217 |
| Credits | 60 |
| OU Level | 2 |
| SCQF level | 9 |
| FHEQ level | 5 |
| Course work includes: |
|---|
| 5 Tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) |
| End-of-module assessment |
| No residential school |
Study explained
- Financial support
- - find out if you qualify for support with your fees with our eligibility checker.
- Study explained
- - all you need to know about distance learning with the OU.
Student Reviews
Despite what I felt was a wobbly start I thoroughly enjoyed this course, and more so as it progressed. My ...
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I studied this module in it's first presentation. TMA1 was a gentle introduction to the later TMAs. The module appeared ...
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