Improving Health and Wellbeing

All health and social care practitioners have a role in supporting others to improve their health and wellbeing. While the Making Every Contact Count initiative is one example of this approach, all practitioners are expected to promote health as part of their role.

The Improving Health and Wellbeing programme offered by The Open University features the distinctive strengths of The Open University from its years of expertise in supporting learning. You’ll benefit from:

– the convenience of accessing its clearly presented and sequenced materials and activities whenever suits you and wherever you have access to the protected course website – if you prefer, you can print key materials to work on them offline. Note taking templates are available and saved for you in the virtual learning environment.
– receiving a Statement of Participation which you can use to demonstrate your continuing professional development (CPD) activity to your employer and/or professional body. (N.B. The course does not carry academic credits.)
Some of the pages within the course contain links to external sites. Accessing these sites is part of the allocated study time for the course. You may also wish to undertake additional background study or reading if some of the concepts introduced are completely unfamiliar to you.

Vocational relevance

The course focuses on person-centred practice and is highly relevant to staff working at all levels in health and social care (registered staff and non-registered support staff), those directly involved in frontline care and those who need to understand the importance of supporting and empowering service users to make changes to their lifestyle and promote healthier living. Participants will establish a strong link between what they learn and their work practice.

The way the course is delivered means it is accessible to people working in acute, community and domiciliary settings; staff have access to learning at any time that suits them (24/7) and can refer back to case studies, guidance and learning points at any time – even after they have completed study. This ensures that outcomes from study can be applied in practice long after the course has been completed. We are proud of the way the course creates relevant, enduring and transferable outcomes for health and social care service.