OU Course Helps To Develop Management Skills In Health And Social Care

Staff with management responsibility, including clinicians, nurses, social workers and other healthcare professionals, will benefit from studying Managing Health and Social Care. It will provide them with the necessary skills to deliver modern health and social care services – increasingly important as the management role in the NHS changes to reflect expansion in provision.

Students will be encouraged to develop the range of skills demanded in that changing environment.

The course consists of four modules, which together provide a comprehensive foundation in management. They are: The Manager; Managing People; Managing Services and Managing Information. The university’s School of Health and Social Welfare is offering the course. It is a new presentation within the NHS Leadership Centre’s Managing Health & Social Care Open Learning Framework project.

Course chair Euan Henderson said: “Since the 1990s, earlier versions of this project’s learning materials have been studied by thousands of health and social care professionals and managers. It has become the management development programme of choice for scores of health and social care organisations throughout the UK and beyond.

“This new presentation provides the opportunity of online tutorial support, which will be of particular value to those whose working hours, geographical location or caring responsibilities deny them access to other opportunities for management development.”

The course will be presented for the first time in February 2003. Would-be students who are looking for more information are asked to call Betty Morris at the School of Health and Social Welfare on 01908 653743 or b.morris@open.ac.uk

It is recommended that, to benefit fully from the course, students are currently – or have recently been – working in roles with an element of management.

Successful students will gain the Open University’s Professional Certificate in Management and 60 university credit points at Level 3 (360 points, made up of a specified combination of points at various levels up to Level 3, are required to achieve an OU undergraduate degree).

The course can provide an entry to the Open University Business School’s suite of diploma and MBA courses.

EDITOR’S NOTES

The Open University is a major provider of education and training to the NHS, offering courses, practice-related study materials and vocationally-relevant qualifications. The university’s School of Health and Social Welfare has more than 14,000 students taking undergraduate courses and several thousand others who are studying non-assessed teaching materials.

CONTACT

Neil Coaten

Open University Media Relations

01908 652580