Professional Doctorate Public Health (Health Visiting)

A Professional Doctorate is a specialist qualification that is appropriate if you are in, or are aspiring to, a senior professional appointment in practice, education or management in health or social care. It demonstrates your ability to undertake significant personal development and research within your specialist area of practice. The aim of the course is to provide a unified approach to theory and practice within a professional context, so your learning is structured to allow you to develop your skills both in the workplace and within the academic environment. Depending on your individual circumstances, your study can be undertaken over 5 years (with an additional period of completion of up to 1 year, if required). During this time, you will prepare two extended essays which chronical your personal development over the programme of study. In tandem, you also study taught modules at the University of Essex which provide you with the expertise in qualitative, statistical and other research methods required for researching healthcare. At the end of the programme you will have prepared a 40,000 word research study, this research will make an original contribution to own area of practice. You will have regular one-to-one meetings with your supervisor to develop your research topics and plan, and to discuss progress on your research. A full list of research interests can be found on our staff pages. The School of Health and Social Care is proud to work closely with our Service User Reference Group (SURG). SURG is made up of service users, carers, and volunteers who generously share their first-hand experiences of health and social care. We work collaboratively with SURG to design our courses to ensure that we truly are putting the needs of patients and clients at the heart of what we do. SURG are involved as part of our course application processes and often form part of our interview panels. This helps us to be confident that we are selecting the right applicants for the course and their future careers. SURG members also support the delivery of our teaching sessions and research activity, which means you'll benefit from an insight into their lived experiences of living with a diagnosis, health condition, or circumstance. You'll find that not only does your clinical knowledge expand, but your empathy, compassion and ability to advocate develops also.

Our Professional Doctorates are only open to UK applicants(except for the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology).

You need to be registered with a UK regulatory body (where appropriate)

You should also be currently employed in management, practice or education, or in a senior position in a health or social care organisation, and possess a Masters qualification (or equivalent)

Employment in a senior position within a health or social care organisation

To make a full application, you will need to:

complete the University's online application form

provide two academic references

provide academic transcripts/certificates

provide a language certificate (if relevant)

provide a 500 word personal statement

attach a 300-word description of:

your clinical practice (for clinical programmes)

Your managerial responsibilities (for management programmes)