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Patient Safety and Quality Improvement at University of Oxford - UCAS

University of Oxford

Degree level: Postgraduate

Patient Safety and Quality Improvement (Taught)

Course options

2024 - 20252025 - 2026
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Course summary

The information provided on this page was correct at the time of publication (November 2024). For complete and up-to-date information about this course, please visit the relevant University of Oxford course page via www.graduate.ox.ac.uk/ucas. The Postgraduate Certificate (PGCert) in Patient Safety and Quality Improvement is a part-time course for healthcare professionals, offered by the Department for Continuing Education in collaboration with the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences. It can be completed in one year (though two years is possible), and consists of three modules, each a week long and taught in Oxford. The department provides online support and e-Library access for distance learning on either side of the Oxford-based weeks. The course will appeal to doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, managers and others who have an interest in patient safety and quality improvement. By taking the Postgraduate Certificate in Patient Safety and Quality Improvement, you will gain a deeper understanding of the factors influencing patient safety, learn how to investigate safety problems and how to make care safer. You will also learn about quality improvement approaches and how to better understand our complex healthcare systems so as to improve quality of care across multiple domains, such as outcomes, patient experience and timeliness. You will gain an understanding of:

  • How to take a broad, systems view of the care system you want to understand and improve, including how to develop insight into technical, human and organisational dimensions of an improvement or safety challenge
  • The underlying principles behind the sometimes-confusing array of quality improvement methods, each with their own advocates and jargon, learning how these methods relate to one another and how they fit into an overarching model of quality improvement
  • How to measure different aspects of quality and care systems
  • Why changes that initially succeed will, more often than not, degrade over time – and what works to prevent this so that initial changes are sustained and further improvement can be built upon them
  • Approaches for understanding and improving safety in healthcare including human factors, design and ergonomics
There is a growing evidence base that quality improvement and human factors-based projects in healthcare have real impact on clinical outcomes for patients. The University of Oxford has a strong research base in patient safety, and this course benefits from the researchers’ intensive collaboration with clinicians. You will attend two core modules and one optional module. The core modules are:
  • Quality Improvement Science and Systems Analysis
  • Human Factors, Teamwork and Communication.
Your optional module is chosen from:
  • Leadership and Management in Health Care
  • Becoming a Clinical Educator
  • Healthcare Innovation and Technology
Each module includes a period of preparatory study and one week of full time, face-to-face teaching in Oxford, which is then followed by a period for assignment work. The modules can be studied in any order and each module normally takes place once a year giving you the opportunity to individualise your patterns of study. The taught week is an intensive week of seminar-style teaching, class discussions, guest lectures, interaction with tutors and lecturers, workshops and practical sessions. In the four weeks running up to each taught week you should expect to dedicate 4-6 hours per week to preparatory reading. In the six weeks following each taught week you should expect to dedicate 10-15 hours per week to researching and writing your module assignment.

Entry requirements

For complete and up to date information about this course please visit the relevant University of Oxford course page via www.graduate.ox.ac.uk/ucas.

Fees and funding

Tuition fees

No fee information has been provided for this course

Tuition fee status depends on a number of criteria and varies according to where in the UK you will study. For further guidance on the criteria for home or overseas tuition fees, please refer to the UKCISA website .

Additional fee information

For complete and up-to-date information about fees and funding for this course, please visit the relevant University of Oxford course page via www.graduate.ox.ac.uk/ucas.
Patient Safety and Quality Improvement at University of Oxford - UCAS