AC6750 - Improving Outcomes in Health & Social Care Practice

You will experience a variety of teaching and learning methods on this module which you can use to link theory to your practice. Your learning will occur through lectures, seminars, and independent study. However, the module learning will be predominantly directed by your selected project direction and focussed through tutorials with your project supervisor as you engage in student independent learning. Formative assessment will play a significant role in the development of your learning in this module, engaging with this process will be key. The subject matter lends itself to practice driven evidence-based enquiry and debate, and your tutor will guide and encourage you in this learning method.

You will be supported through regular feedback from your tutor, within the workshop and discussion format of specific teaching sessions and in tutorials. In addition, a discussion board for your module will be established on Northumbria University’s eLearning portal ‘Blackboard Ultra’ (BBU), BBU also allows remote access to materials and aids for module students to access (populated by your module tutor). You will be supported throughout the module by your personal tutor and supervisor.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:
1. Conceptualise a final project topic and establish its relevance to current health and social practice.
2. Critically examine contemporary policy within the context of organisational, social, and political culture, and analyse the impact on practice.
3. Critically reflect on the uncertainty, ambiguity and limits of knowledge as applied to practice.

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
4. Articulate and share an analysis of the interaction between evidence and its impact on outcomes in health and social practice.
5. Critically evaluate the concepts of governance and quality assurance in relation to their contribution to your practice context.

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):
6. Critically analyse the effectiveness of interventions in health and social care, with recommendations for improvement

Formative assessment will take place in a student led and tutor supervised project proposal panel in a similar format to the BBC series ‘Dragons Den’. The panel will consist of members drawn from the student and academic body, including practice stakeholders where possible. This will inform and shape the student’s summative submission offering feedback through reflection and constructive feedback.
Summative assessment will consist of a practice evaluation project that examines an area of health and social practice, situated within your own practice, relating and comparing it to the available contemporary literature, to determine its contribution to improving outcomes for health and social practice. This will be a digital submission of a 10000-word project via Turnitin.
Feedback will be provided electronically via Turnitin and will include development advice for future academic work (MLO 1-6)

Understanding and developing evidence for practice

N/A

The module ‘Improving outcomes in health & social care practice’ is designed to facilitate the student’s exploration of the relationship between the contemporary evidence base and its impact on outcomes in health and social practice. An examination, analysis and evaluation of this relationship culminates in the production of a capstone project, rooted in the context and area of practice of the student’s choosing, designed as a mechanism to display the academic achievements of the students as they have progressed through their programme. Formative assessment offers the student the opportunity to present their project to a panel of academic staff, peers and stakeholders informing the summative written assessment demonstrating the complexities of the acquisition of knowledge, skills and abilities gained throughout their academic journey.