Health Policy and Systems
Overview
- Credit value: 15 credits at Level 5
- Convenor: to be confirmed
- Assessment: a 500-word essay outline (30%) and 1500-word essay (70%)
Module description
In this module you will learn about the functioning of health policies, health services and health systems, drawing on relevant disciplinary perspectives, and considering strategies for improvement. This will involve understanding the core building blocks of health systems and services, the structures, processes and interests linked to them, as well as the implications of different approaches to system design for access, quality, equity and broader societal outcomes.
Indicative syllabus
- What are health policies and how are they created?
- How do health policies influence systems and service?
- What is a health system? What are the health systems for?
- Health system functions and approaches
- Assessing health systems and their performance
- What is a health service?
- Inputs to health services: health professionals, finance, policy environment
- Health services: need, demand and use including service-user interaction
- Quality assessment, accountability and improvement
Learning objectives
By the end of this module, you will be able to:
- describe some of the basic functions of health services and critically evaluate the reasons why services have developed in the way they have
- describe and give examples of the inputs, processes and outcomes of health services
- define the concept of a ‘health system’, and major theories and approaches related to health systems functioning and their relevance for public health
- assess the role of different health care system configurations to promoting good health, access to services, equity and wider social outcomes
- design and apply a health systems approach to major health challenges in different contexts
- identify the key actors within policy making, and critically assess some mechanisms of power and influence over policy change
- identify key features of the processes of policy identification, formulation, implementation and evaluation and the impacts of policies on health services and systems.