Whatever your relationship with health and social care services, the way you act and react in situations, and the way you relate to other people you meet, has a huge impact on how any service is delivered and experienced. Perhaps you already work in a health or social care setting, maybe you provide informal care for a family member, or maybe you’re a regular user of health or social care services yourself and just want to learn more about your experiences and how to shape them. The more you understand about how the health and social care system operates, and why people behave as they do within it, the easier it will be to navigate it and get the best outcomes for all concerned.
This module guides you through the basic foundations of a caring approach to leadership and management. It provides you with the tools and insight to understand your role in relation to others, and what you can do to help achieve the best outcomes for all involved.
This module is designed to appeal to anyone with an interest in how we can maintain caring services in a modern, complex and demanding world. It provides an overview of the organisational, legal and policy contexts within which services operate, focusing on the challenges and opportunities faced by people across health and social care. Throughout the module you will apply your learning to real life examples, drawn from the case studies provided and your own personal experiences. This is particularly useful for those wishing to pursue a career in management and leadership, while the knowledge and skills you'll develop are equally valuable to anyone who uses services and wants to develop a better understand of the system and the human relationships within it.
This module will help you get to grips with the constantly changing nature of health and social care provision, improve your knowledge, develop skills and help in understanding what makes behaviours enhance, or undermine, good quality service experiences for everyone. Throughout, you will explore case studies, policies and strategies relevant to your own context or areas of personal interest. As a result you'll develop a broad understanding of the challenges and opportunities of managing, leading and caring in health and social care, and be able to reflect on your own personal skills and abilities for working with others to contribute to positive care service experiences and outcomes.
From your first week of study you will have the opportunity to work with a variety of carefully selected ‘tools’ – including self-assessment inventories, decision making tools, change management models, stress management frameworks and goal setting techniques. By the end of the module you will have compiled your own personal ‘toolkit’ for effective working with others which you can take with you to apply in any context, and will serve as a useful future resource for personal and professional development.
There are 4 blocks of study exploring the key areas of concern for leading, managing and caring:
Block 1: Approaching care
You'll start by exploring your own relationship with care, managing and leading. We all have to care for people or things in our daily lives and we are all at one time or another on the receiving end of care from others; we all encounter ‘management’ in our daily lives; and we are exposed to a variety of leaders trying to convince us to follow their vision. The first block gets you to reflect on this and to think about your own capacity to manage and lead others, even if you have no formal leadership or managing experience.
Block 2: Caring relationships
In the second block you'll explore how theoretical understanding can support practical attempts to provide effective care, and work through complex situations with a variety of people. You will reflect on how your own approach to leading and managing others influences the relationships you have, not just at work but in wider everyday experiences as well.
Block 3: Creating a caring environment
Next you'll move from focusing on relationships between people, to relationships between people and their environments. Drawing on real life examples you will consider the impact of organisational and political contexts on service experiences in health and social care. You will think about what we can do – either as providers or receivers of those services – to make them more effective.
Block 4: Ethics, quality and care
Having considered the practical context within which services exist, in the final block you'll reflect on the ethical context of health and social care practice. This will involve reflecting on personal values and ethical practice, legislative requirements around safeguarding, and the value of learning from experience.
Each block of study ends with a guided enquiry where you are provided with a case study scenario, some background context, and a set of tasks to complete. Working either alone or in collaboration with other students these activities provide perfect opportunities for you to apply your new knowledge and skills in a safe environment with the support of your tutor and your fellow students.
Leading, managing, caring (K318) is designed for anyone who would like to learn more about management and leadership in health and social care. It is particularly relevant to any existing or aspiring managers or potential leaders looking to develop their career and employability.
If you're resident in Scotland, the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) have approved this module (K318) as an acceptable award for all parts of the SSSC register, excepting managers in day care of children services.
You’ll get help and support from an assigned tutor throughout your module.
They’ll help by:
Online tutorials run throughout the module. While they’re not compulsory, we strongly encourage you to participate. Where possible, we’ll make recordings available.
Course work includes:
You’ll have access to a module website, which includes:
You'll also receive a print copy of the module textbook, which will also be available to read online, and you will have access to relevant published research which will be available through the Open University library’s online resources.
You can study this module on its own or use the credits you gain towards an Open University qualification.
K318 is a compulsory module in our:
K318 is an option module in our:
Leading, managing, caring (K318) starts once a year – in October.
This page describes the module that will start in October 2026.
We expect it to start for the last time in October 2028.
As a student of The Open University, you should be aware of the content of the academic regulations, which are available on our Student Policies and Regulations website.
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There may be extra costs on top of the tuition fee, such as set books, a computer and internet access.
If your income is not more than £25,000 or you receive a qualifying benefit, you might be eligible for help with some of these costs after your module has started.
There may be extra costs on top of the tuition fee, such as set books, a computer and internet access.
If your personal income is £25,000 or less, or you’re on certain benefits, you could qualify for a grant and OU top-up funding to cover 100% of your course fees. Apply online at the same time as you register on your module.
For more information on how to apply, visit our Part-Time Fee Grants for students in Scotland page.
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We know that sometimes you may want to combine payment options. For example, you may wish to pay part of your tuition fee with a debit card and pay the remainder in instalments through an Open University Student Budget Account (OUSBA).
We know that sometimes you may want to combine payment options. For example, you may get support from your employer to pay part of your tuition fee and pay the remainder by credit or debit card.
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Please note: your permanent address/domicile will affect your fee status and, therefore, the fees you are charged and any financial support available to you. The fee information provided here is valid for modules starting before 31 July 2026. Fees typically increase annually. For further information about the University's fee policy, visit our Fee Rules.
