Health systems vary considerably in the ways they are organised including the way they provide care and how they are financed and what they fund. This module will introduce you to the various organisational structures, processes, and funding alternatives of different health systems around the world, include the UK’s National Health Service, from an interdisciplinary perspective.  You will gain a foundation in health economics and priority setting.  Health system quality and performance, including health outcomes and health inequalities, and mechanisms to improve it will be discussed to identify what a successful health system should look like. Health policy and the politics of health will be discussed, and the role of evidence in setting policies and informing practice. Students will also gain an understanding of the numerous challenges that health systems face, including non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and infectious diseases (like recent pandemics), staff shortages, conflict, financial and environmental sustainability, and climate change.

Aims: 

The aim of this module is to provide students with an overview of how health and care systems are organised globally, including how care is provided and funded; how systems prioritise provision, including the role of health economics in setting priorities; and the policy challenges and solutions to overcome these.

Module Content and Indicative Topics

What does it mean to be European at the cusp of the third decade of the twenty-first century? Why have issues of...

Nationalism and Ethnicity in Contemporary Europe (ELCS0032)

This module provides a general introduction to the foundations of education through film and literature. Film and literature are used to prompt us to think of...

Philosophical Reflections on Education with Film (EDPS0002)

This module provides a general introduction to the foundations of education through film and literature. Film and literature are used to prompt us to think of ways in which educational relationships become the material for art and for entertainment, and the consequences of their construction of images of the teacher, students, the curriculum, and the institution of school. This is a means of considering both the relationship between representation and reality, and the way in which understandings of reality are affected by fictional or media images.