Student Profile - Kristina Fletcher

PGCert Managing Health and Social Care

The course was really helpful to me because it focused on what I was actually doing on a day to day basis in my job, which meant that everything was relevant and helped me to gain more understanding of my current and what research has shown to work well or not so well in terms of managing peole, quality and developing services.

I have worked in my current post as a Service Manager in Mental Health Services for more than three years and have degree and postgraduate level qualifications in Psychology, Teaching and Mental Health. It was therefore important to me to study a qualification in management in order to learn the theory and evidence of underpinning the practice of my current operational management job.

I looked at a number of different postgraduate management courses before deciding that the Postgraduate Certificate in Managing Health and Social Care at the University of Bradford was the right course for me. I chose the course partly because it was recommended to me by our lead for professional development and also because it was much more appropriate for my job as a manager in health care, compared to other more general management courses. I was also very keen on the course because it focuses on self directed learning which is more flexible in terms of being able to manage your own time for studying whilst working full time as a manager.

It helped me to look at things in a different way and to develop my existing knowledge and practice. I also gained a lot from spending time with other managers and discussing our own experiences and ideas about the topics that we covered.

Whilst I was working towards my last assignment on quality, information and service development, I was also writing a funding bid for a service development project and I found that I could actually incorporate a lot of the service development tools and literature into the bid which was really helpful.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the course and feel that I have also benefited from having a very supportive and knowledgeable tutor who is also a manager in health care and therefore also understands the demands of working full time whilst studying. I have certainly benefitted from studying for this qualification and I am sure that it will continue to benefit me throughout my management career.