Units

Contemporary issues in health care

The focus of the unit is on exploring a range of contemporary issues that impinge on advanced nursing and midwifery practice, acknowledging that perceptions and ramifications of such issues will vary dependent on local circumstances. Students will firstly identify, then critically examine the implications of local and global issues with respect to their own sphere of practice. Allowing the student group to select issues with the greatest relevance, immediacy and importance to their own practice encourages involvement and promotes ownership of the resultant discussions.

Becoming a reflective practitioner

This module examines the accepted dominant tradition which sees rational, explicit and articulate understanding as the core ingredient in informing professional knowledge and practice. It aims to encourage critical thinking about professional knowledge and practice to allow the intricacies and complexities of professional work to be better understood. What is seen to be fundamental to the development of the reflective practitioner is the gaining of personal and professional insights through the critical analysis of, and challenge to, the practitioner´s own work, which, in consequence, empowers them to seek different solutions to practice problems

Leadership and service development

This unit is designed for health care professionals who are advancing and developing services in health and social care communities. It will enable each student to explore the underpinning knowledge and skills relating to leadership and teamwork and to consider how empowerment, personal influence and collaborative practice affect the patient/client experience. Strategies required for the effective evaluation of service provision and the pursuit of quality in health and social care provision will be critically examined.

Managing change in health care

Change is a certainty throughout life. Building upon the foundations laid in the reflective practice unit, this unit offers the opportunity to critically evaluate and reflect upon change survival and growth utilising life and work experiences to demonstrate self-awareness and synergy. Students will critically evaluate change from different perspectives: organisational approaches and issues within change management; the individual response to change events; and the personal need to develop and change.

Research methodology

This unit will introduce students to the purpose and principles of qualitative and quantitative research together with its application to relevant areas of practice. The meanings of research terminology will be explored and methodological techniques and practices associated with data collection and analysis will be examined. Students will explore the ethical and social implications of planning and undertaking research. They will develop the knowledge and skills needed to critically appraise, and effectively evaluate, the quality of research and its contribution to the subject-specific knowledge base.

Research design and application

Through planning and designing their own research projects, students undertaking this unit will be exposed to a range of intellectual and philosophical influences underpinning research. The practical challenges encountered in doing research will be identified and students will be encouraged to explore ways of managing and resolving such challenges. The importance of conducting data gathering in an ethically sound manner, sensitive to the needs of research subjects, will be emphasised. Students will acquire skills in critical self-scrutiny and active reflexivity through examining the researcher´s role and relationship with research subjects

Research dissertation

This unit gives students an opportunity to undertake a substantial personal research project. The research topic must be relevant to the scope of the course and must be realistically achievable within the time and resources available. Students are encouraged to work up a concept based on an area of particular interest and/or relevance to themselves. The subject and methodological approach will be agreed between each individual student and their tutor(s) and will normally be based on those worked up in the preceding Research Design and Application unit. The completed work will be written up in the form of a dissertation

Optional units – students will take two from those available, including:

Diversity in maternal and neonatal health

This unit will consider and contrast sociological, psychological and epidemiological frameworks for understanding diversity in health. Students will consider features of the social and economic structure of societies as explanations for health diversity between and within societies. They will examine the interface between the individual and society for explanations of health diversity within societies. Whilst a variety of health issues will be explored, patterns of a specific health behaviour (e.g. smoking) will be pursued as a linking theme throughout. Students will critically examine the implications of issues with respect to the health and well-being of childbearing women and their babies

Antenatal screening and genetics

This unit will cover human developmental genetics and biology from gametogenesis, through early embryogenesis to the establishment of an implanted fetus. Inherited diseases, chromosomal aberrations, congenital malformations and other divergence from normal fetal development will be studied, together with such issues as spontaneous abortion and implications of increasing maternal age. Antenatal screening strategies and available detection technologies will be covered in detail. This will provide the background to discuss appropriate ways of explaining the process and counselling prospective parents considering or undertaking antenatal screening, dealing particularly with the interpretation and implications of results and consequent actions

Information and communication in health care

This unit will examine a range of theoretical and practical issues related to information handling and communication strategies in healthcare. It will prepare students to analyse and assess the impact of print, broadcast and internet communication employed in healthcare. The conflict between data access and data protection in the effective delivery of a data-intensive healthcare environment will be explored. The student will investigate both the process of preparing written material for publication in an academic journal and the nature of academic publication itself