| Start date : | Duration : 3 years full time (30 weeks per academic year) |
| Tuition fees : Find out more about fees and funding | Award : Degree of Bachelor of Science (BSc) |
| UCAS Code : I511 |
Entry requirements : A level: ABB including mathematics or a science subject. IB: 34 points with a minimum of 4 in English |
You will learn how to support individuals to help themselves to better health and wellbeing. Most importantly, you will be equipped to use leading-edge science and to contribute to improving health services for individual users.
There is a recognised need for a new type of health science practitioner, educated in ’fusion sciences’*, to undertake a role perhaps best described as a Health and Wellbeing Science Practitioner.
With four fusion sciences* interwoven throughout the programme, this course will give you a breadth of scientific training including high-level consultation skills; a holistic, evidence- and values-based approach to shared decision making; and clinical physiology. You will also develop the knowledge and skills to work with the digital technologies that play an ever-increasing role in supporting health and wellbeing.
*The four fusion sciences:
The course will be a mix of taught sciences and practical placements.
There are seven taught modules in each of the first two years, blended into five concentrated learning blocks each year. Between these concentrated blocks, there is a programme of activities including an average of one day per week on an NHS placement.
Before each teaching block, you will study a virtual case designed to integrate the different strands of science learning on that block. This case-based learning will incorporate personal and group study, web-based discussions and tutor interaction.
The third year comprises four taught modules, a placement-learning project, and a 30-credit work based project/dissertation.
The course has been designed so that your learning is integrated across the fusion sciences and a Personal and Professional Development (PPD) strand, and so your assessments will also be integrated to reflect that.
In the first two years you will complete three written assignments per year, as well as being marked on the quality of the work demonstrated in your learning log, which you will maintain throughout the course. At the end of each year there will be a practical examination known as an ‘Objective Structured Science and Clinical Examination’.
Throughout the course you’ll have formative tests to help you ensure that your learning is on track. You will also have regular tests within your NHS placements. These comprise Case-based Discussions, (CBD) where you will talk about someone you have engaged with in the workplace, showing your supervisor that you have a grasp of the important points, and Directly Observed Practical Skills (DOPS) where you demonstrate your competence to an educational supervisor.
Your third year research project is assessed not only through your written report, but also by your presentation. You’ll also be expected to engage in a professional discussion with an assessor and in an ‘Observed Clinical Event’ to demonstrate your handling of a typical situation that might be encountered by a health and wellbeing scientist.
Vacation placements
University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust is offering six students the opportunity for a paid summer vacation placement at the end f Year 1. Two places will be available at Birmingham Childrens’ Hospital, and four at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham.
Full details of how to apply for one these posts (offering anticipated earnings around £3,000) will be available in November 2018, and appointments will be made early in Term 2 of the course, by which time you will already have had one term’s experience of placements at the Trust.
Transfer to an NHS Degree Apprenticeship Programme
At the end of your first year you may apply to transfer into Year 2 of a BSc Degree Apprenticeship with the NHS (continuing to study with Warwick on a part-time block-release basis while working as an NHS employee) or continue as a full-time student on this course.
Please note that the BSc Degree Apprenticeship is currently subject to final NHS approval, so this is not guaranteed, and those seeking apprenticeships will need to be accepted by NHS or other employers.
Subject to approval, this course will also be offered as an Integrated Masters course and, subject to meeting the progression requirements, students on the BSc course may have the option of transferring onto the Integrated Masters course and completing a fourth year at Level 7 for the award of MSci.
Equipped with this degree, you could apply for career posts in the NHS, in private practice, in occupational health within industry and commerce, and in wider digital health practice. With further training you could apply for academic posts in universities.
The field of practice is opening up, as employers recognise that massive national investment in preventative medicine is unlikely to bear fruit unless there is more support for people to change their lifestyles. Doctors, nurses and allied health practitioners will often identify for patients the ways in which their lifestyle needs to change, and may ‘prescribe’ smoking cessation, weight loss, exercise, dietary changes, etc, but these clinicians may not be able to support change effectively. Often they do not have the time, as emergency care pressures are competing, and they may not have the broad range of skills with which you will be equipped when you graduate.
A degree in health sciences and technology offers you more than the skillset offered by many who set up in unregulated roles as nutritionists, personal trainers or lifestyle coaches. You will be amongst the first to offer employers a university accredited training in high-level consultation skills, scientific training in relevant clinical physiology and behavioural science, as well as digital healthcare.
Early career roles could include:
Later career roles could include:
Year 1: Individuals, wellbeing, choices and decisions
Year 2: Supporting people in their context and optimising digital healthcare
Year 3: Practice and research
* The modules mentioned above may be subject to change. Please read our terms and conditions for more detailed information
