Our Professional Doctorate in Health and Social Care (DProf) is designed to enable healthcare professionals to make a significant impact in the field of health and social care. This practice focused award is relevant for doctors, nurses, medical and paramedical practitioners, allied health professionals, midwives, health and social care managers and health care educators.

Key information

Award:

Mode of Study:

Full-time

Duration:

3 years

Location:

The University of Bolton

Start date:

21/09/2020

Course Details

The Professional Doctorate in Health and Social Care is designed to support you to produce an independent original contribution to knowledge and/or practice that has a significant impact in the field of health and social care.

At the outset, we'll introduce you to doctoral studies and the principles of research design in health and social care. You'll be supported to contextualise your enquiries and explore research methodology, methods and analysis. Our experienced healthcare professionals will guide you as you conduct your fieldwork project and support you as you plan and write your doctoral thesis.

In order to complete the programme, you'll need to submit a 60,000 word thesis and successfully pass the thesis examination and viva voce examination.

Our focus is on helping you to complete and defend your thesis successfully, and supporting you as you grow into an independent, ethical and innovative researcher.

Highlights

Tuition is provided by experienced healthcare professionals as you develop and demonstrate a systematic, analytical and critical approach to complex issues and their application within the field of enquiry.
Our aim is to support you to achieve a mastery of academic scholarship in a chosen field of enquiry at the cutting edge of knowledge creation.
You’ll have the chance to develop independent skills of designing and governing a robust and complex research enquiry.
You’ll have the opportunity to benefit from our strong strategic partnerships with local NHS organisations.
On successful completion of this programme you’ll be awarded a Professional Doctorate in Health and Social Care from the University of Bolton.

Key Features

Our dedicated academic team brings extensive health and social care experience to the course content. Along with their passion for service excellence in health and social care settings, they’re also currently engaged in highly relevant research, which means they can add valuable context and insight to your learning.
We offer accessible learning through a series of workshops, supervision and extensive online resources to help you achieve your full potential.
This rigorous academic student journey is also designed to develop your research governance, organisation and personal effectiveness skills as an independent researcher.
Our ambition is for you to make a real difference in your sphere of practice and influence, making a positive impact on the lives of others.

Normally, you’ll have at least an upper second class honours degree (2.1) in a relevant subject, or a master’s degree (or equivalent) in a relevant subject.
You’ll also possess credible and relevant experience in a health or social care profession or occupation. Example professions and occupations include doctors, nurses, medical/paramedical practitioners, allied health professionals, midwives, health and social care managers and health care educators.
We welcome your application if you hold a degree awarded by an overseas institution. The University will assess the equivalence of your qualifications.
The University of Bolton recognises prior learning, whether gained through academic credit and qualifications or through your professional and employment experience. Previous learning may be used towards meeting the entry requirements for this programme or for exemption from part of this programme. It is your responsibility to make a claim for recognition of prior learning, and each claim will be considered in accordance with the University’s policy and regulations for the recognition of prior learning.
You may be required to attend an interview and/or provide a portfolio of work.
If English isn’t your first language you’ll also need IELTS 6.5 with normally no less than 6.0 in any band (or equivalent). We also accept a range of other English language qualifications – please visit our English Language Requirements web page for more details.

Want some reassurance or advice? Speak to one of our advisors. Email us at enquiries@bolton.ac.uk or call us on +44 (0)1204 903 903.

Where changes are made to material information contained in this course description or a decision is taken to suspend a course between the offer of admissions and enrolment, we will inform applicants at the earliest possible opportunity and will outline the various options available to the applicant.

The Professional Doctorate in Health and Social Care is designed for a range of advanced health and social care professionals who are interested in enhancing their expertise through research in practice. Completing this programme will allow you to gain the high level skills needed to generate new knowledge at the cutting edge of practice development. It will help to develop your career in leading and developing practice as you pursue excellence in your chosen field. As a graduate of this programme, you’ll be able to demonstrate a significant contribution to your professional area, and possess a range of advanced skills such as research planning, use of research methods, research analysis, innovation, conference writing and presentation.

What can I do with this qualification?

Possession of the Professional Doctorate in Health and Social Care demonstrates your credibility in undertaking vocationally related research enquiry in the health and social care sector. It will support you to follow a wide range of career paths in health and social care whether in the NHS, private and third sectors or in education. As a graduate of this programme, you’ll be ideally prepared for roles that demand reasoned evidence informed thinking and critical analysis, and the development of evidence based practice in the context of complex health and social care problems and challenges. You’ll be in a strong position to develop further post-doctoral research with your networks and with health and social care partners. Graduates from this programme can go on to be senior leaders, researchers and academics in their professional field. Completing a research degree can open up career paths in commercial research and development and consultancy. Often people will undertake this programme to develop their own professional knowledge in order to develop practice within their own specialist field.

Alternative career options

Graduates can also use the qualification to enter a range of other careers, and for some of these roles, both relevant experience and/or postgraduate study may be required. Some of these careers include:

Education
Public sector health and social care services
Third sector health and social care services
Private sector health and social care services
Industries allied to health and social care
Publishing
Political advisors
Voluntary sector
Mental health
Occupational therapy
Community education
Journalism
Educational psychology
Product development
Policy development
Nursing
Consultancy

Course fees

Home EU Fees	Year of study				Total
Entry year	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24
2020	£4,328	£4,328	£4,328	-	£12,984

International	Year of study				Total
Entry year	2020/21	2021/22	2022/23	2023/24
2020	£12,000	£12,000	£12,000	-	£36,000

The fees for a student’s course of study will be set for the normal duration of that course subject only to inflationary increases – measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) recorded in March each year to take effect for subsequent start dates.

The university is currently awaiting government guidelines as to EU fee charges for students commencing study in 2021/2022.

Bursaries

Click here for more information on our 2020 Master's Bursaries.

You may apply directly to the University using the University's online application form. Please select your chosen start date from the list below:

You should have to hand:

Details of the educational establishments you attended and dates
Your certificates for the qualifications you are using to gain entry to the course – you will need to enter the completion date and upload copies
Details of any employment history including name, address, dates and role
Personal statement – this can be either input into the relevant field or uploaded separately
Details including e-mail addresses of two referees, at least one of which should be someone who can provide an academic reference

Please make sure any documents you wish to upload in support of your application are in pdf or jpeg format. Personal statements may be word documents.

Please ensure your data is correct at each stage of the application before you proceed to the next page. If you use the back button at any time during the application, you should check the validity of the data you have already input.

If you experience difficulties during the application process, contact the Admissions Team on 01204 903394 or admissions@bolton.ac.uk

Apply online: University of Bolton Professional Doctorate in Health and Social Care - 21 September 2020

The University welcomes applications from international students from all over the world. We try to make the application process as simple and as fast as possible for our international applicants.

How you apply is determined by your current location and what you are choosing to study:

Apply direct to the University. Links for the next available intakes of this course are shown below. Please click the link which will direct you to the online application form. Please read the user guidance before completing this.
Apply via one of our approved in-country referral partners. A list of our partners may be found on the International pages of this website.
Apply via UCAS for courses starting in September only – visit www.ucas.com.

Should you have any queries please contact the International Team on +44 (0) 1204 903110 or email international@bolton.ac.uk

Apply online: University of Bolton Professional Doctorate in Health and Social Care - 21 September 2020

Our teaching and learning strategy uses a flexible blended learning model that includes a range of online resources alongside a series of contact or online workshops. We focus on building our student community through a range of activities that include discussion, networking, and presenting. The aim is to develop shared and peer learning that operates within our supervision framework. This education journey promotes your academic citizenship and helps you build relationships with peers in your discipline through active participation in communities regionally, nationally and internationally. It also helps you to develop the networking skills that will support your ability to engage in the global context of research enquiry and dissemination to make a positive impact.

During the taught elements of the programme you’ll be expected to attend workshops that are designed to promote collaborative learning and student peer support. Being part of regular discussions and critiques should facilitate the development of your confidence and competence in producing high quality scholarly work, and your independent defence of it as attention moves towards developing impact and dissemination.

The teaching and learning philosophy for the field work and thesis modules centres on promoting your individual development as an independent researcher. We’ll guide and support you through supervision. As you undertake your research, your supervisor(s) will support you to develop your skills in critical examination of ideas and problem solving during each phases of your project(s). We’ll encourage you to develop dissemination via scholarly publications and presentations throughout the programme.

Formative and summative assessments are conducted periodically to determine whether you’re meeting the learning outcomes of the programme. The range of assessments include written work, presentations and oral examinations. These are designed to build up sections of your final thesis, develop your skills of presentation and defence of your ideas (including a viva voce examination) and produce work of publishable quality to develop your impact in your chosen field of enquiry.

Modules

The modules listed below may be a mixture of compulsory and optional. You may not have the opportunity to study all the modules shown as part of the course.

Introduction to Doctoral Studies
Research Design in Health and Social Care
Contextualising Enquiry
Research Methodology, Methods and Analysis
Fieldwork Project
Doctoral Thesis Planning and Writing 1
Doctoral Thesis Planning and Writing 2
The Thesis

Assessment methods

Level	Assesment method
Level one	Coursework 100%

Learning activities

Level	Learning activity
Level one	Guided independent study 93%, Scheduled learning and teaching activities 7%

Disclaimer

The university will use all reasonable endeavours to deliver your course as described in its published material and the programme specification for the academic year in which you begin your course. The university considers changes to courses very carefully and the university will minimise any changes. Please be aware that our courses are subject to review on an ongoing basis and changes may be necessary due to legitimate staffing, financial, regulatory and academic reasons. The content of course modules and mode of associated assessments may be updated on an annual basis. This is to ensure that all modules are up-to-date and responsive to employment and sector needs. The published course material and the programme specification contain indicative ‘optional modules’ that may be subject to change due to circumstances outside of our control. For this reason, we cannot guarantee to run any specific optional module.