Start Date

1st September 2025

Format

Part-time

Duration

24 months

Location

Online

Fees

£9,760

Overview
   
Course Content
 
How you learn
 
How you are assessed
 
University
 
Entry Requirements
 
Apply

Overview
   
Course Content
 
How you learn
 
How you are assessed
 
University
 
Entry Requirements
 
Apply

Overview

The master’s in healthcare leadership offers a comprehensive exploration of leadership theories, organisational behaviour, and strategic management within the healthcare context. You’ll cover topics such as ethical decision-making, team dynamics, clinical governance, and change management. This course emphasises the application of leadership principles to real-world healthcare challenges, ensuring you develop practical skills alongside theoretical knowledge.

Our Healthcare and Leadership programmes are thoughtfully designed to support healthcare professionals across the West Midlands, with a special emphasis on practitioners in the Black Country. Our goal is to enhance strategic management by equipping professionals with advanced knowledge and skills rooted in the needs of their communities. By building expertise within the Birmingham regional healthcare workforce, we are dedicated to improving patient outcomes and advancing leadership across critical healthcare services.

Our healthcare leadership MSc stands out for its fully online, flexible format, allowing healthcare professionals to study without career interruption. Unlike traditional courses, we offer a global perspective, connecting you with healthcare leaders worldwide.

Course Content

The MSc in Healthcare Leadership provides a multi-disciplinary learning environment with online delivery, avoiding the need for the release of staff from the workplace. The programme is competitively priced to offer good value for money whilst enabling practising healthcare professionals the flexibility to continue with their professional development, thereby optimising client outcomes. The breakdown of the modules is considerate of the need to blend subjects with those that are rapidly emerging in the discipline. The two-year Masters in Healthcare Leadership will be formed of six 20-credit modules (120 credits) and a 60-credit professional project (180 credits in total).

Year 1

Aims of the Module

During the 6 weeks of this module, students will learn and understand why leaders are important and the difference between leadership and management as well as understanding the varying aspects of leadership theory (authentic, charismatic, collective, compassionate leader/follower)

Learning Outcomes

  1. Systematically examine ‘what is leadership’ and consider its value in complex healthcare organisational structures.
  2. Critically explore relevant leadership theories in line with understanding ‘followers’ to improve the healthcare organisational environment, taking into account the complexity of interacting social factors.

Module Content

  • Is leadership about the individual or the social relationships?
  • What do followers potentially admire in a person taking on the role of leader?
  • What is power and how does power affect the dynamics of leadership?
  • A unique feature of this module will be to understand the value of ethics in organisations. It is expected that this aspect of this module will help leaders to be more ethical in their approaches within a healthcare setting, which is so important for the medical profession.

Aims of the Module

The aim of this module is to explore how leaders can develop and improve healthcare services by recognising and harnessing human potential and recognising how the culture shapes an organisation and a focus on integrated teams across the industry, covering culture, purpose, values and trust.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Recognise the dynamics of effective teams and how to better enhance the healthcare working environment by exploring organisational culture, and engaging individuals to work collaboratively (integrated teams).
  2. Comprehensively assess the elements of building a high-performing team in your own healthcare setting, including the importance of common purpose, trust and values.

Module Content

  • Theories of Motivation – the application of these theories to improve productivity and innovation.
  • Organisational Culture – its impact both on leaders and followers.
  • Job Design and Engagement – what are the factors that lead to levels of engagement in your role and how are the conditions created to foster employee engagement?
  • The Psychological Contract – defining and critically analysing the concept.
  • Talent Management – how it is used in a healthcare setting.
  • Diversity and Work-life Balance – considering the reality of diversity, equality and work-life balance in healthcare; its importance and how it could be improved.

Aims of the Module

To apply the theory and practice of clinical governance, quality improvement and patient safety to complex healthcare settings, and learn what is the role of leadership in healthcare with regard to clinical governance? Exploring the activities that it is traditionally composed of, moving on to an introduction to the 5 cultural components.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Evaluate the role of clinical governance in improving healthcare organisations.
  2. Systematically navigate the complexities of implementing clinical governance and quality agendas in achieving high-quality care and patient safety.

Module Content

  • The various approaches to applying clinical governance in practice, including the considerations how it is not applied in practice. This is applied by looking at the various levels within healthcare organisations: department/specialty; organisational level; hospital governance; finally, any external parties involved.
  • A critique of the concepts of Safety-I and Safety-II, defining and discussing psychological safety and how it can be implemented at various organisational levels.
  • Considering the differences between what is deemed an ‘acceptable’ error versus an ‘unacceptable’ error.
  • Incorporating accountability and how this is linked to patient safety.
  • Considering its importance in healthcare in relation to a blame culture, considering what Just Culture means in practice.

Aims of the Module

The module explores our understanding of what a ‘career’ is and compares the true meaning of jobs and vocations. It will explore leading through crisis, including material on wellbeing and recognising the blurred line between mentor, coach and counsellor and how to recognise when to pass on to a professional.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Evaluate the role of career development tools in complex healthcare organisations.
  2. Critically appraise the elements of mentoring and coaching and effectively consider ‘wellbeing’ in complex healthcare situations.

Module Content

  • What is meant by coaching and mentoring in a workplace setting?
  • What makes a high-performing healthcare team?
  • Potential differences between team leadership and team management. Students will be asked to consider their own places of work and consider how shared team leadership can be more effective in healthcare.
  • Leading through crisis.
  • In exploring inter-professional teams, the focus is on the collaborative nature of teams working more effectively across boundaries.
  • The aim of the final week is to bring all the learning together and consider how to select effective team leaders by weighing a potential team leader’s social capital against human capital.

Aims of the Module

This module explores the concept of VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) and focuses on what strategy means and how organisations can become innovative. It also explores healthcare of the future, sustainability, and values-based healthcare.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Analyse the role of strategy in achieving aims and objectives within complex healthcare organisations.
  2. Advocate the means of developing a culture of innovation to build effective healthcare organisations for the future.

Module Content

  • Strategy – what does strategy mean?
  • Factors that influence strategy
  • How to turn a strategy into performance
  • How to make an innovative organisation
  • How organisations learn
  • Healthcare in the future

Aims of the Module

This module combines all the knowledge of the previous five modules to deliver the most important outcome: “The Change.” It looks at leading change and uncertainty.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Critically evaluate a range of change models and theories, synthesising and selecting appropriate models for a diverse range of situations.
  2. Justify appropriate leadership in implementing change, taking into account the ‘problem’ being addressed, organisational culture, and personal responses to change.

Module Content

  • Students will be able to understand the difference between Change Leadership and Change Management.
  • Also, what are the resistors to change?
  • What techniques and/or approaches can help guide change?

Year 2

Aims of the Module

Research Methodologies and Critical Appraisal
To help students recognise, understand, interpret and apply methods used in healthcare research and critically appraise the various methodologies specific to research in the subject area.

Professional Project
To develop students’ ability to critically appraise specific areas of clinical, research and/or organisational practice and develop skills in independent research, study and writing for publication.

Content Summary

Research Methodologies and Critical Appraisal

  • Terminology used in epidemiology and research studies such as prevalence, incidence, sensitivity, specificity, false positive and false negatives.
  • Interpreting graphical representation of epidemiological and statistical data such as Kaplan-Meier curves, forest plots and meta-analyses.
  • Calculations used in the assessment of research data such as relative risk, absolute risk and number needed to treat. Statistical tests and their applications including t-tests, ANOVA and chi-square.
  • Qualitative research methods.

Fundamentals of evidence-based practice and its application into the clinical setting

  • Principles of health economics, audit and quality improvement/assurance systems.
  • Establishing patient registers and the value of disease-specific registers.
  • Research into educational principles for both healthcare practitioner and patient.

Professional Project

This module will depend on the creation of a piece of work based upon a specific clinically related project relevant to the student’s practice. This project may comprise:

  • Literature review and appraisal of the evidence.
  • Audit of practice including organisational or clinical.
  • Review and implementation of evidence-based practice.
  • Qualitative or quantitative research (formal research involving human subjects is not anticipated).
  • Case(s)-based and quality of service review with critical appraisal.
  • Case report, review of literature and organisational assessment.

How you learn

You’ll learn through our flexible, interactive online platform, which allows you to engage with clinical cases, complete assignments, and collaborate with fellow students at times that suit your schedule. There’s no fixed timetable—simply log in daily to participate in the week’s activities.

Learn through engaging discussion

Our teaching approach is highly interactive, using small groups of 10-20 students to foster a collaborative environment where you can engage in thoughtful discussions and receive guidance from your tutor. You’ll have access to learning resources and discussion forums that encourage ongoing interaction and deeper engagement with the material.

Throughout your studies, you’ll receive support from a dedicated expert tutor and our Student Support Team, ensuring you have the resources needed to navigate the course successfully.

How you are assessed

This programme emphasises learning through active participation in case-based discussions, reflection, and real-life scenarios. Students engage with clinical cases that mirror everyday practice, fostering problem-solving and evidence-based application from the very beginning.

Across the modules, assessments are integrated with learning. Each week, you will work through two to three clinical cases, discussing and reflecting on them with peers under the guidance of an expert tutor. These discussions form the core of your learning and are also the basis for your assessments.

Our innovative teaching methods are designed to help you translate this learning into real-world clinical practice. You’ll need to regularly log in to participate in discussions, ideally on a daily basis, and commit approximately two hours per day to your studies. Our dedicated Student Support Team is available to assist with any challenges you may encounter, from navigating our online platform to managing deadlines.

How Foundational Knowledge is Developed

The programme is structured so that foundational knowledge is introduced through carefully designed clinical cases. Each case is crafted to highlight essential concepts and progressively deepen your understanding as you apply critical thinking and evidence-based analysis. This hands-on approach ensures that you are not only acquiring theoretical knowledge but also learning how to apply it in a practical, clinical setting.

This programme is suited for professionals who thrive in an online, discussion-based learning environment. Please note that this course focuses on interactive, applied learning through peer collaboration and case discussions. You will be fully supported, encouraged and led through the programme to success and graduation!

  • Every week students are presented with two/three case-based scenarios that are reflective of every day clinical practice and research.
  • Your tutor will post a number of questions and prompts to aid students in a formal discussion of each case.
  • These discussions are facilitated throughout by your tutor and are then assessed at the end of every module.

The reflective journal is used by students throughout each module to monitor personal progress. This is guided by weekly feedback from your tutor and is graded at the end of every module. The journal typically includes the following:

  • Initial expectations and reasons for taking the course.
  • Module and/or personal learning objectives.
  • Description of events, issues and learning points within current personal practice.
  • Change in every day practice due to knowledge gained on each module.
  • A description of what has been learned during the module.

At the beginning of each module, students are presented with a module assignment. The module activity may take the form of an individual piece of work, such as an essay on a relevant topic, or may be a group activity, such as the creation of a marketing plan. This activity tests a student’s ability to work independently or work within a team: to select, sift and analyse information, interact with colleagues and apportion group member’s roles and derive a solution to the module task.

The diverse assessment methods within each module are designed to test the expected characteristics of Masters graduates. These include critical awareness of current issues and developments in leadership, critical skills, knowledge of professional responsibility, integrity and ethics and the ability to reflect on their own progress as a learner.

About Learna

A Shared Vision for Accessible, Professionally Relevant Education

We partner with Learna because they share our commitment to accessible, flexible, and industry-aligned education. Like us, they believe learning should empower professionals to grow without pausing their careers. Together, we deliver qualifications that are responsive to real-world needs.

Who Are Learna?

Learna is a trusted provider of postgraduate online education, partnering with respected institutions including the University of South Wales, University of Buckingham, and University of Wolverhampton. Since 2010, over 5,000 students have advanced their careers through Learna’s online courses.

Why Study with Learna?

  • Professionally Relevant – Programmes tailored to working professionals
  • Accredited University Partners – Delivered in collaboration with UK universities
  • Flexible Online Platform – Study 24/7 at your own pace, with no fixed timetable
  • Affordable, Global Access – Competitively priced with no international surcharges
  • Expert Faculty – Taught by global subject specialists selected for their expertise
  • Diverse Learning Network – Connect with professionals worldwide
  • Low-Carbon Footprint – 90% fewer emissions than traditional study models

Beyond the Degree

Learna’s mission is to improve global outcomes through accessible professional education. Whether in healthcare, business, or other fields, their programmes are designed to support ambitious professionals on their own terms.

Study smarter. Study with Learna.

Entry Requirements

Since our courses are conducted entirely online, they are accessible to both UK and international registered healthcare professionals.

Applicants will typically hold a first degree or equivalent (including international qualifications) in a relevant professional healthcare field, such as a medical or nursing degree.

Registered healthcare professionals without these recognised qualifications will be considered on an individual basis and a wide range of prior experience may be taken into account. In some cases, applicants may be asked to submit a piece of work for assessment in order to confirm that they are able to work comfortably at postgraduate level, and demonstrate the requisite clinical and professional knowledge.

Documents Required

  • A copy of your updated CV including your address and date of birth.
  • A copy of your undergraduate degree certificate.
  • The name and email address of someone who is able to provide a reference, this can be a work colleague, employer or former tutor.
  • A detailed personal statement explaining why you would like to undertake the course.
  • A copy of your proof of English competency (see below).

English Language Requirements Proficiency in the English language is also essential to completing our courses. If English is NOT your first language, we ask for proof of competency during the application process. We are able to accept an IELTS overall score of 6.0 (with a minimum of 5.5 for each band) or an equivalent qualification.

If you do not meet these requirements, please don’t worry. The run a number of English Language Programmes at the Centre for International English to prepare you for your academic studies.

Should you have already successfully completed the 1 year Postgraduate Diploma and wish to convert to the MSc and complete only the second year of the programme this is possible.

Should you have already successfully completed the 1 year Postgraduate Diploma and wish to convert to the MSc and complete only the second year of the programme, this is possible. Please contact our admissions department admissions@diploma-msc.com to find out more.

Apply

To enquire and apply please complete the form and upload your CV (preferably as a PDF). Our application team will then check your eligibility for this course.

Click or drag a file to this area to upload.

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