BSc (Hons) Health and Social Care (HE6 top-up)
Course Overview
Health and social care is a vast service sector providing support to vulnerable people, such as children, older people and adults with disabilities or mental health issues. Taught by the Growth Company in Manchester, this BSc (Hons) Health and Social Care top-up course offers you the opportunity to build on previous qualifications to develop the values, skills and knowledge essential to good health and social care practice. Completing your honours-level studies opens the door to many rewarding employment opportunities, career advancement and postgraduate learning.Balancing policy, practice, and academic training, our course is strongly linked to the UK government's health and social care agendas. Our highly experienced and dedicated team will lead you in an exploration of compassionate health and social care, research in health and social care, safeguarding, and more. We'll support you in learning how to collaborate across professional boundaries, use evidence to inform your decisions, and understand critical health and social care issues and ways of dealing with them.
We'll focus on helping you become a knowledgeable, compassionate, and person-centred professional.
Highlights
- The Growth Company is a well-established partner of the University of Bolton, based in Manchester, focusing on business, early years, and initial teacher training courses.
- We'll support you as you build on your prior knowledge and learning by topping up your foundation degree, HND or other diploma level qualification to a full BSc honours degree.
- Guest lectures and talks by health and social care service providers and service users give alternative perspectives to enhance your understanding.
- Alongside specialist health and social care knowledge, you’ll have the chance to develop your skills in research, data evaluation, critical reasoning and analysis, as well as in areas such as communication, team working, problem-solving and self-reflection.
- Our emphasis on supporting you in developing study and critical thinking skills will help you engage with further learning and prepare you for postgraduate study.
Key Features
- We'll work with you as an individual, giving you access to the help and support you need to succeed.
- Our highly qualified and research-active team offers a vast range of professional experience in health and social care, as well as close links with the sector, the NHS, and voluntary and charitable organisations.
- The programme connects with local and national employers through an Industrial Advisory Board. This helps to ensure that you have excellent placement opportunities and that the course content is kept up to date.
- By studying alongside other students whose professional health and social care experience has been gained in a wide variety of working environments, you’ll be able to share in their knowledge and experience, helping you to provide the highest standard of care for your clients in the future.
- A link tutor provides academic communication between The Growth Company and the University of Bolton’s academic school so that the experience you receive as an off-campus student is equivalent to that of an on-campus student.
- As an off-campus student, you'll also have access to the support of the University’s dedicated Off-Campus team and resources, to help make you truly feel part of the institution.
- The Growth Company in Manchester offers excellent IT facilities, WiFi and well-appointed teaching, learning, and study areas.
- You’ll also have access to the University’s e-learning resources, an extensive e-library and the support of University librarians.
Entry Requirements
- You are normally expected to have successfully completed a relevant qualification at Level HE5, such as a foundation degree or HND, or a professional qualification at an equivalent level. Examples of relevant qualifications include FdA Health Care Studies or HND Health and Social Care.
- Each application will be considered individually.
- 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 6.0 with no less than 5.5 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.
- Please note that this course is subject to the University of Bolton's Fitness to Practise procedure.
- This course is open to Home students only. Applications from International and EU students cannot usually be accepted because the study location for this course is not licenced by UKVI to sponsor students. Therefore, if you require sponsorship under the Student Visa Route to study in the UK, then, unfortunately, we'll be unable to consider your application for this course. Some EU students are eligible to study this course under the EU Settlement Scheme or Common Travel Area arrangement – for details, please visit https://www.gov.uk/guidance/studying-in-the-uk-guidance-for-eu-students.
- Please visit www.gceducationandskills.ac.uk/higher-education/ to find out more about The Growth Company.
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.
Career Opportunities
Our BSc (Hons) Health and Social Care top-up course looks at health in its broad context and investigates contemporary health issues. There's a growing demand for health and social care workers who are not restricted by boundaries and can work flexibly to accommodate the increasingly complex health and social care needs of individuals, families and communities.
This top-up course will enable you to develop a range of key transferable employability skills, including written and verbal communication skills, IT skills, the ability to work independently and in a team, research and data analysis skills, the ability to provide support and guidance, and work in complex and demanding situations.
What can I do with this qualification?
As a graduate of this honours top-up programme, you'll be well-prepared to apply for roles with greater responsibility in a wide range of statutory, voluntary and independent settings, including local authority or multi-agency teams, health promotion projects, refugee and asylum services, hospitals, sheltered accommodation, hospices and day centres, and residential care units.
In addition, as a graduate with a health and social care background, you'll be in a good position to be considered for careers in health education and promotion, welfare, health research, community mental health and commissioning and care management services. You'll be able to pursue roles in service management and coordination, or in advocacy, education and training. You might also seek work as a technician and support worker helping children and families, older and disabled people, drug and alcohol abusers, and people with mental health problems.
Further study is a popular option for health and social care graduates. For some career areas, such as social work, nursing, research and teaching, additional study is required to achieve professional recognition.
Alternative career options
Graduates can use this qualification as a stepping stone into a range of other careers. Some of these roles may require relevant experience and/or postgraduate study. Areas to consider include:
- Probation work
- Substance misuse
- Victim support
- Youth work
- Social housing
- Learning support
- Counselling
- Mental health
- Occupational therapy
- Community education
- Teaching and training
- Journalism
- Dietitian
Fees & Funding
Home/EU Fees
No fee information is currently available, please contact Student Data Management on 01204 903059 or SDMenquiries@bolton.ac.uk for more information
International Fees
No fee information is currently available, please contact Student Data Management on 01204 903059 or SDMenquiries@bolton.ac.uk for more information
Bursaries
Important note regarding tuition fees for the 2025-26 academic year: EU nationals who meet residency requirements (have settled or pre-settled status) may be eligible for 'Home' fee status. If you do not meet these residency requirements, overseas fees will apply. Irish citizens living in the UK or Ireland will be eligible for 'Home' fee status under the Common Travel Area arrangement. Please read the student finance for EU students web page on www.gov.uk for information.
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.
How to apply
Home Applicants
Course application details are unavailable at present
International Applicants
Course application details are unavailable at present
Partner Organisation Applicants
Please contact Admissions by telephone on 01204 903903 or email enquiries@bolton.ac.uk
Admissions
University of Bolton
Deane Road
Bolton, BL3 5AB
United Kingdom
Tel: 01204 903903
Email: enquiries@bolton.ac.uk
Teaching & Assessment
We use a wide variety of learning, teaching and assessment methods. These aim to help you develop the skills, knowledge and competencies you need to achieve the learning outcomes of this course, and more importantly, the values and attitudes essential to good health and social care practice that will support you to succeed in your future career.
Lectures introduce the core course content, while seminars and group-based activities allow you to explore subjects in greater detail and consider the policies and practices involved. In tutorials, you can ask questions to ensure you understand the topics covered in lectures and seminars. We use case studies, practical scenarios, and role-play to help you learn to apply academic theory to real-life problems, allowing you to gain insights into health and social care practice in the working environment. We'll also encourage you to use online learning resources to enhance your studies.
In addition, we offer masterclasses with practitioners from the health and social care sector, sessions with guest speakers who use health and social care services and applied work experience. These seek to enhance employability and bridge the gap between theory and professional practice.
Our assessment methods aim to replicate activities that are required in the workplace. For example, we'll expect you to write reports, give presentations, create leaflets, develop your portfolio of practice, analyse care plans, review relevant literature, analyse complex cases and discuss how to manage change. You'll also be required to write essays and reflective accounts, take practical and written tests and get involved in group discussions. Some assessments will contribute to your final module mark and allow you to demonstrate that you have met the learning outcomes. In contrast, others are designed to help you identify areas that need extra attention on your part or where you need additional support from your tutors.
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.
- Research Proposal/Methods
- Compassionate Health and Social Care
- Dissertation/Research Project
- Contemporary Mental Health
- Working With Children and Families
Assessment methods
| Level | Assessment method |
|---|---|
| Level 1 | Coursework 97% Written exams 3% |
Learning Activities
| Level | Activity |
|---|---|
| Level 1 | Guided independent study 78% Scheduled learning and teaching activities 22% |
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.
