Course options
Key information
Duration: 4 years full time
UCAS code: L51F
Institution code: R72
Campus: Egham
The course
BSc Health and Social Care with Integrated Foundation Year
This course is available to Home (UK) students and students from the EU who meet the English Language requirements.
Are you looking for a degree that will help you make a difference in society? That gives you a comprehensive and critical understanding of health and social care and helps building healthy and resilient communities for a sustainable future?
Our four-year BSc Health and Social Care with an Integrated Foundation Year is a thorough, skills-building course that will give you everything you need to start your career with confidence.
Our Foundation Year sets you up so that you’re ready to take on your degree - providing you with opportunities to gain knowledge and understanding of how to get started with this fascinating subject at university. All Foundation Year students take foundation course modules around health and social care, culture, global challenges and mathematics and once you have completed your foundation year, you will normally progress onto the three year BSc Health and Social Care.
Studying our new interdisciplinary BSc Health and Social Care means that you will learn from leading experts from within sociology, social policy, social work and health who will share their research and experience so that you gain invaluable skills to help you understand individuals, communities and their key public health and social care issues.
The degree will help you to take a broad view of these issues and explore them from a range of different perspectives. It will introduce you to understanding society and people in society and provides training in core areas within health and social care. Short placements will be available once you’ve finished your foundation year, for the next two years, and a small group-based community research and innovation project is included in your final year.
• You will benefit from academic study combined with vocational training – integrated work-based learning opportunities
• Combine a solid theoretical grounding with a vocational strand to maximise your future opportunities whether you are considering a professional career or further study
• Gain critical thinking skills which will help you analyse and understand issues pervading the study of health and social care
• Gain practical skills in evaluation and research
From time to time, we make changes to our courses to improve the student and learning experience. If we make a significant change to your chosen course, we’ll let you know as soon as possible.
Course structure
Core Modules
Integrated Foundation Year
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This module aims to help students develop a critical approach to a range of data types and sources. Focusing on examples of the ways data is used in Britain in two key social policy areas, crime and health, students will gain experience in presenting and interpreting qualitative and quantitative data. Students will investigate a number of case studies within these areas, examining the effects of alternative ways of gathering and visualising data and beginning to identify the uses and limitations of different data sources and types. They will develop an understanding of the way data is used to form judgements and to inform attitudes, policies and action.
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In this module, students will be introduced to a range of ethical frameworks and the philosophical traditions underlying them, examining their methods, concepts, challenges, limitations, and achievements. After reviewing key ethical theories, the module will investigate a variety of ethical problems and dilemmas, exploring a range of practical ethical topics to connect theories and stances with the nature of the twenty-first-century world. Students will practice using ethical reflection, insights, and understandings to help clarify and seek resolutions for controversial issues or problems that arise in a particular domain. This will involve an examination of the way ethical and legal frameworks have been developed for the regulation of issues of ethical concern in areas such as human rights, wealth distribution, technological change, the environment, and human sexuality.
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In this module, students closely examine, compare and contextualise a range of texts that deal with the theme of learning. The core texts: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Purple Hibiscus (2003); Willy Russell’s play Educating Rita (1980); and Alan Parker’s film, Fame (1980), will be accompanied by a range of extracts from a broad variety of text types, from poetry to philosophy to legal documents. Each week, we will consider a key issue raised by the core text under discussion alongside extracts from other texts. Students will be encouraged to use the methods of Critical Discourse Analysis in their close reading, comparison and contextualisation of the texts.
The module aims to provide students with a flexible and adaptable framework that enables them to read, understand and interpret texts from any discourse area closely, analytically and critically. It will support their understanding of the ways in which different text types function and enable them to identify the way genres provide frameworks for audiences to comprehend discourse, assess the means by which apparently similar aspects of the world can be appreciated and understood from different perspectives or positions, and explore the ways in which discourse is used to constitute a sense of being and identity.
The module will also provide opportunities for students to reflect on their own experiences of and beliefs about learning, and to consider their own learning methods and processes as the Foundation Year progresses. This will support the transition to their degree courses, giving them agency in the process as they think carefully about how they learn, how they might learn more effectively, and how that is affected by cultural, social and economic forces.
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This module aims to develop the statistics skills of students on Life Sciences degrees with an Integrated Foundation Year, in order to prepare them for their undergraduate degrees. Students will learn to apply statistical analysis to a variety of applications within Life Sciences, including applications in geology, ecology, biomedical sciences and health studies. Each week, students will cover a statistics concept or statistical test and practice calculations in areas including (but not limited to): interpreting p-values and errors, linear regression, Chi-squared tests, Wilcoxon test, and principal component analysis. With each concept, they will apply the skills they have learnt to real-world datasets within the different Life Sciences disciplines.
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Students will learn about the key systems, e.g. circulatory, ventilatory and reproductive in a broad range of species including humans, plants and a wider range of vertebrate and invertebrate species. This approach will allow key chemical concepts to be explored at this level, as well as anatomical and physiological adaptations to life. They will also learn about the impact of disease on these systems. This module will be beneficial to the biological science, biomedical science and health studies students, for whom a detailed knowledge of the range of organ systems will enable them to not only extend their knowledge but, particularly for health studies students to put into context the anatomy and physiology that will form part of their practice in the workplace.
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Global and Planetary Health is built around global issues. Each topic will embody issues of global importance and be based on authentic and topical world events.
The module is intended to deliver an interdisciplinary, academically authentic introduction to global issues, which satisfies a wide range of interests appealing to students wanting to progress onto a range of life science subjects. Therefore, readings and lectures will approach the topics from a life sciences perspective. Topics covered are likely to include Virtual reality, Health apps, Internet of medical things, Mental Health, Climate catastrophe, Global biodiversity crisis, Technology for monitoring the environment and The ‘One Health’ approach. The module also aims to help students develop their study skills to succeed on the Integrated Foundation Programme and as undergraduates. It introduces students to thinking and reading critically. It explains what it means to be 'critical'. The module also focuses on writing, teaching students about the writing process, how to find and review literature, how to build an argument in essays, how to use academic English, and how to cite and reference to avoid plagiarism. Finally, it offers practical advice on planning study work, becoming more organised, and finding further guidance if needed.
- Department Specific Skills
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The aim of the project is to enable students to engage in theoretical work on an agreed specific area relevant to one of the departments within the Humanities. Topics will be proposed by supervisors from which students can state three (rank ordered) preferences or students may propose their own topic subject to agreement. The allocation of project topic and supervisor is carried out with the intention of enabling students to work on their preferred (highest ranked where possible) area. Projects will be completed on the basis of a specification agreed with their supervisor and progress will be monitored against the specification. The project will culminate with a joint Poster Presentation with all students on the Foundation Programme.
Year 1
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This professionally oriented module addresses students’ employability skills with providing them with foundational level competences (knowledge, skills, values and agency) in social care. The emphasis within this module is empowering, holistic, person-centred, individual level care which will be contextualised from the perspectives of professional multi-agency practice, diversity and service user involvement. The aim is to help the students to engage both with the theories and practices of person-centred social care and develop their communicative, dialogic skills and ethical sensitivity. This module includes practice placement of 40 hours during term 2 coordinated by the Royal Holloway Volunteering Team. Students can opt to volunteer in diverse health care setting as well depending on their professional interests.
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This module will explore and examine how human behaviour and experience are influenced by social and interactional experiences and contexts across the lifespan. Drawing on diverse theories and applying research evidence ‘Perspectives on People in Society’ will enable you to identify and critically analyse literature and research evidence on human development and to communicate on how life events and social contexts impact on people’s experiences. You will explore social, biopsychosocial, psychological and ecological perspectives, focusing on the person in their environment. You will also explore how context, challenge and change impact on life experiences.
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The aim of this module is to provide a holistic overview of the human structure and functioning through an interdisciplinary approach which enables students to understand the interconnecting perspectives across the biological, psychological, social and environmental sciences.
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The aim of this module is to provide an understanding of the different health professional roles and how they play a vital role in treatment, rehabilitation and improving health and wellbeing in health and social care.
Year 2
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This module focuses on more advanced skills development in relation to working with risk, early intervention, safeguarding and promoting people’s social participation in their diverse social contexts. Essential social and welfare policies will be covered in this module and students will be introduced to different means of social advocacy and anti-discriminatory practice. Students further develop their ethical sensitivity by focusing on identifying social justice-related ethical dilemmas in their practice. This module includes a 40-hour placement (term 2).
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This module will introduce community development work and core concepts of power, social justice, participation, co-production and advocacy. Lectures will introduce theory, concepts and practice examples of community development in action, with guest speakers (who have experience in the sector) invited to share their knowledge with students. Seminars will introduce students to the skills required to complete a community profile and an assessment of strengths and needs in the area. Perspectives from community members will be central to the values of the module and students will learn to reflect on their own positionality vis-à-vis the members of the community they are focussing on.
- Physical and Mental Conditions
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The module aims to develop knowledge and an understanding of the purpose and process of research and enable students to demonstrate research awareness and evidence-based practice to support services and the wider healthcare outcomes.
- Health Promotion and Protection Frameworks
- Health Policy
Year 3
You will choose between Qualitative Methods OR Quantitative Methods
- Dissertation
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This third-year module builds on the previous two social care modules within BSc Health and Social Care Degree. The aim of the module is to provide students with tools to critically analyse concurrent, innovative and entrepreneurial professional approaches as future social care practitioners and leaders. The module is based on reflective practice with a focus on future-oriented skills and competencies in the social care profession. Students also examine their professional orientation, professional identity and purpose in helping others. This module includes a small group-based community research and innovation project in which students focus on solving a practice-based challenge in a health or social care setting by creating tools, models, conceptualisations and applications to tackle this challenge, run with the support of the community research scheme via RHUL Volunteering team.
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The aim of the module is to provide students with an understanding of the influence of the determinants of health, power and discrimination, and the impact on social inclusion and exclusion. The students will use social theory and lived narratives to understand social issues and learn ways to challenge inequality in health across the population.
- Research methods – Qualitative
- Research methods – Quantitative
Teaching & assessment
Teaching and learning is mostly by means of lectures; seminars; tutorials; workshops; study groups; essay consultations; oral presentations and guided independent study. Assessment of knowledge and understanding is typically by formal examinations, coursework, examined essays, online tests and exercises, oral presentations and the dissertation or long essay. In addition, students may be involved in workshops and may produce various forms of creative or editorial work. Two placements will be undertaken, one at stage one and one at stage two. At stage 3, you will undertake a community innovation project.
Contact hours come in various forms and may take the form of time spent with a member of staff in a lecture or seminar with other students. Contact hours may also be project supervision with a member of staff, or discussion through a virtual learning environment (VLE). These contact hours may be with a lecturer or teaching assistant, but they may also be with a specialist support staff.
The way in which each module on your degree course is assessed will also vary, however, the assessments listed above are all ‘summative’, which means you will receive a mark for it which will count towards your overall mark for the module, and potentially your degree classification, depending on your year of study. On successful completion of the module you will gain the credits listed. ‘Coursework’ might typically include a written assignment, like an essay. Coursework might also include a report, dissertation or portfolio. ‘Practical assessments’ might include an oral assessment or presentation, or a demonstration of practical skills required for the particular module
More detailed information on modules, including teaching and learning methods, and methods of assessment, can be found via the online Module Catalogue. The accuracy of the information contained in this document is reviewed regularly by the university, and may also be checked routinely by external agencies, such as the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA).
Entry requirements
A Levels: CCC
Required subjects:
- At least five GCSEs at grade A*-C or 9-4 including English and Mathematics.
Other UK and Ireland Qualifications
EU requirements
English language requirements
All teaching at Royal Holloway is in English. You will therefore need to have good enough written and spoken English to cope with your studies right from the start. Find out what scores we require.
Country-specific requirements
For more information about country-specific entry requirements for your country please visit here.
Undergraduate preparation programme
For international students who do not meet the direct entry requirements, for this undergraduate degree, the Royal Holloway International Study Centre offers an International Foundation Year programme designed to develop your academic and English language skills.
Upon successful completion, you can progress to this degree at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Your future career
This degree will provide you with critical thinking and research method skills, which are paramount in a number of careers.
The degree has a strong vocational strand running throughout, utilising links with local authorities and charities in the health and social care sector. You will prepare for your future career, whether you are interested in working in a professional role or undertaking future training at Postgraduate level.
Fees, funding & scholarships
Home (UK) students tuition fee per year*: £9,250
Eligible EU students tuition fee per year**: £21,400
Foundation year essential costs***: There are no single associated costs greater than £50 per item on this course.
How do I pay for it? Find out more about funding options, including loans, scholarships and bursaries. UK students who have already taken out a tuition fee loan for undergraduate study should check their eligibility for additional funding directly with the relevant awards body.
*The tuition fee for UK undergraduates is controlled by Government regulations. The fee for Integrated Foundation Year courses starting in September 2025 in the academic year 2025/26 will be £9,250 for that year. The fee for UK students in 2026/27 and beyond has not yet been set.
**This figure is the fee for EU students starting a degree in the academic year 2025/26.
Royal Holloway reserves the right to increase tuition fees annually for overseas fee-paying students. The increase for continuing students who start their degree in 2025/26 will be 5%. For further information see fees and funding and the terms and conditions.
*** These estimated costs relate to studying this particular degree at Royal Holloway during the 2025/26 academic year and are included as a guide. Costs, such as accommodation, food, books and other learning materials and printing, have not been included.
