This pathway of units provides experienced health and social care professionals with the opportunity to develop and extend their knowledge of leadership and management theory and enhance their practice.

• Leading for Change 
• Evidencing Professional Learning: 2 Managing and Leading Organisational Change (This unit is only available for students on the Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust Leadership Pathway)

Option units*~

• Self-Leadership
• Improving Personal and Organisational Performance (IPOP)
• Evidencing Professional Learning (EPL) 1,2 & 3 including: Business Writing (Evidencing Professional Learning 3) and Leading and Managing Teams (EPL)
• Leading Integrated Services
• Practice Observation (Self-managed)
• Professional Supervision in Health and Social Care
• Strategic Leadership
• Professional Reasoning and Judgement in Health and Social Care
• Resilience, Advocacy and Wellbeing

Dorset Healthcare only: (These unit are only available for students on the Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust Leadership Pathway):

• Evidencing Professional Learning 1: Leading Self 
• Evidencing Professional Learning 3: Leading and Managing Teams 

*Some of these units run annually and others only run if there are enough applicants to make up a minimum cohort of 12. 

~Students can only use a maximum of three EPL units within the overall award. 

Core Unit for Masters

• Service Improvement Project units

We recommend that applicants undertake our Self-leadership, Improving Personal and Organisational Performance (IPOP) and Leading for Change units prior to undertaking any of the other level 7 Leadership units.

Normally students may enter Level 7 study if they have been awarded:

• Undergraduate degree (honours or non-honours)
• An equivalent qualification (the learning outcome of which are demonstrably appropriate in terms of knowledge, understanding and skills) equivalent to 120 credits at Level 6.

Fees and funding:

You will need to pay or indicate employer support of payment for unit or course fees to the university.

Applicants should contact their employing organisation for further details.

Pre-purchased places

The Faculty of Health & Social Sciences has contractual arrangements with NHS organisations and Local Authorities for pre-paid places on specified modules including NHS South of England. If you work within Dorset & Somerset or Hampshire & Isle of Wight you may be able to access the pre-paid places. These arrangements allow NHS Trusts and Local Authorities to nominate the staff they wish to send on each unit or course.

The pre-arranged agreements allow individuals, such as yourself, a route to access appropriate professional development opportunities that are seen as strategically important to your organisation (in consultation with your Line Manager/Education Co-ordinator). All requests for pre-paid places must first be agreed by your organisation prior to completing an application.

Course review:

In order to take advantage of new approaches to learning and teaching, as well as developments in practice to benefit our students we regularly review all of our courses. This course is currently going through this process and we will update this page to give you full information about what we will be offering once the review process has concluded.  These changes will come into effect for all new students from September 2025. Applicants will be notified by our admissions team of any changes.