International Primary Health Care

Entry requirements

You will normally need at least a 2.1 honours degree or GPA 3.2/4.0 or GPA 3.4/5.0 or equivalent in a relevant subject, such as medicine, the health sciences, nursing or the social sciences. We also welcome applications from those who have studied a less directly related subject at undergraduate level, but who can demonstrate interest and motivation in this area.

Months of entry

September

Course content

The re-launch of this exciting programme is designed to build a diverse and vibrant interdisciplinary learning community of multi-professional practitioners from all parts of the world, who believe in the richness and value of excellent primary health care. This programme is especially valuable for professionals who wish to combine primary health care delivery with population health or make the transition from a clinical patient-facing role to one that includes public health, management, education or policymaking.

We aim to equip our students with a deep and critical understanding of primary care, public health and associated health policy, and will introduce essential skills in research, teaching, service development and quality improvement from an international perspective: We have designed this programme to attract doctors, nurses, allied health professions, together with managers and policy makers, who hope to make a difference!

High quality primary health care and public health policies form the cornerstones of an efficient, effective and equitable health system. They are supported by a coherent system of health financing and organisation. They also depend on knowledgeable multi -professional teams who can empower patients and communities and devise preventive strategies and promote self-care and home-based support, in the face of increasing complex burdens of disease.

This vision of primary care is widely held and is prominent in the policies of the World Health Organisation, but achieving this is not without challenges! Building effective primary health care depends critically on expanding the number and capacity of leaders, educators, researchers, policy-makers and change agents in the system.

Through the knowledge and analytic skills gained on this course you will:

• Understand the principles and practice of effective primary health care in different settings and, within different healthcare systems.
• Be equipped to address the challenges facing primary care across a range of global contexts, to support the development of effective and sustainable locally-delivered healthcare
• Be able to plan and develop primary health care services and systems, and advocate for them,
• explore the social determinants of health and the challenges of inequalities for health systems policy, and how these relate to primary health care delivery