Health and Social Care Practice (with pathways)

Make a difference in the lives of those living with long term conditions. You’ll study a degree aligned with the UK health and social care policy framework to ensure you graduate with the skills and confidence for your future career. 

During your studies you’ll explore holistic approaches to physical and mental health, tackling inequalities, and supporting diverse communities. You’ll also address critical priorities such as disease prevention, health promotion, safeguarding, and early intervention, equipping you to work across a range of different sectors.  

Throughout your course you’ll focus on how you can support vulnerable people to live independent, active and healthy lives, and how to respond effectively to the needs of their families and carers. 

You could choose to tailor your degree to your interests or career goals by studying a specialist pathway in Public Health or Child and Family.  

We’re proud to welcome applications from candidates with practice experience in youth work, health, social care and education. This is as part of our commitment to enable those from non-traditional backgrounds to be able to study as part of our commitment to widening participation. 

Skills for your future 

You’ll study curriculum that prepares you for work in a variety of settings. For some students, this programme and pathways exist as a springboard for later specialisation in particular professions such as public health, social work, general nursing, mental health nursing, paediatric nursing, teaching, occupational therapy, radiography and other therapies. 

Exciting placement opportunities 

During your second and third year you’ll take a placement to put the skills you’ve learned into practice. Placements are a great chance for you to make valuable industry connections, broaden your horizons in different employment settings and bring your health and social care knowledge to a range of employment settings.

'The placement experience taught me how to adapt and develop learning  with adolescents who have a range of learning disabilities and needs. This has helped me build my confidence and assertiveness.'  - Hannah. 

You’ll receive full support from our placements team and the senior lecturer for practice to ensure you make the most of this experience. A dedicated work-based mentor will also provide you with on-site guidance during your placement. Placement hours are subject to change.

Please note that our modules are subject to change - we review the content of our courses regularly, making changes where necessary to improve your experience and graduate prospects.

Our teaching methods are designed to make you a confident, reflective learner. During your studies we encourage you to explore new ways of thinking, discuss and develop your ideas and to critically evaluate current health and social care practice.  

You’ll learn through a variety of methods including lectures, small group discussions, workshop, seminars, presentations, tutorials and placements. 

We regard placements as critical to your future career success, enhancing your learning, building your confidence and broadening your perspectives. They enable you to apply theory to practice and give you a flavour of the different working environments in which you could pursue your career. 

Throughout the degree, you’ll have one-to-one support from a personal tutor who will provide advice and guidance on your personal and professional development. 

How you are assessed

There are no exams. Assessments are wide-ranging, flexible and innovative so you can align them to your own areas of interest. They could take the form of written assignments, reports, posters, presentations, observation of practice and portfolios. All the projects on which you are assessed will be topical and reflect current working practices. 

Our graduates work in a range of sectors, such as:

• Local Authority teams with vulnerable adults  
• Multi-agency teams working with families
• Health promotion projects  
• Teenage pregnancy projects 
• Homelessness services  
• Refugee and asylum-seeker services  
• Residential care units  
• Care-leaving and advocacy organisations  
• Advocacy work  
• Dual diagnosis support teams such as mental ill health and drug use  
• Community mental health  
• Community development
• Public Health services  
• Commissioning and care management services  
• Parenting support organisations in the statutory and voluntary sectors  

Contextual offers may apply to students who meet certain criteria.

Additional entry requirements

• An Enhanced Disclosure & Barring Service certificate cleared by the University is required for this course. We will contact you with information on how to complete this once you have applied

Further information about our fees and support you may be entitled to

Additional costs and optional extras

Additional information about your studies

Teaching hours

Like most universities, we operate extended teaching hours at the University of Derby, so contact time with your lecturers and tutors could be anytime between 9am and 9pm. Your timetable will usually be available on the website 24 hours after enrolment on to your course.

Course updates

The information provided on this page is correct at the time of publication but course content, costs and other individual course details do change from time to time and are updated as often as possible, so please do check these pages again when making your final decision to apply for a course. Any updated course details will also be confirmed to you at application, enrolment and in your offer letter.

If you are thinking about transferring onto this course (into the second year for example), you should contact the programme leader for the relevant course information as modules may vary from those shown on this page.

Minimum numbers

Please note that this course is subject to minimum numbers in order to run.