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Health Promotion and Public Health Department open windows to exciting roles within the Health and Social Care sector for our students

Article Date | 4 June, 2018

By Mrs Elise Mumbanga, Health Promotion Lecturer, Luton Campus

Working in public health is about promoting health and making sure that the population make inform decisions about their lifestyle and minimise degradation of health. There are different roles and career opportunities within public health, one can build up from support sole and climb up to the most senior level. People that work in Public health are responsible of and take part in raising awareness by generating campaigns that promote healthy living. This means that public health professionals are involved in everything from identifying diseases to creating public policy. In a wider scheme of things public health workers work together with the government to help refugees integrate into new communities.

There are many more roles within the wider public health workforce which may be in greater interest to our students.

Employers including: national government, local government, higher education, the NHS, the armed forces, and the third sector (charities, voluntary).

Jobs directly related to this degree include:

◙ Community development worker
◙ Further education teacher
◙ Health promotion specialist
◙ Health service manager
◙ Medical sales representative

Jobs where this degree would be useful include (could work with/as):

◙ Adult nurse
◙ Counsellor
◙ Occupational therapist
◙ Personal trainer
◙ Physician associate
◙ Social worker
◙ Youth worker

This Degree can also lead to work in the voluntary sector and with medical charities and not-for-profit organisations.

There are a range of opportunities in the private sector, working, for example, in private healthcare organisations as a lifestyle consultant or working in alternative medicine and therapies. Many of these options involve being self-employed.

Working in social care

Social care is about providing physical, emotional and social support to help people live their lives. For various reasons and at different stages in their lives, some people need support to develop and maintain their independence, dignity and control.

◙ Working in social care to help people in their own homes will provide a great sense of empowerment and choices to service users. People can be supported in residential homes or in a number of other places such as day centres or supported housing.
◙ Providing key skills training for health staff so they can assess mental health wellbeing
◙ Training for physiotherapists so they can undertake dementia assessments
◙ Enhancing the competencies of care home staff so they can support clinical and non-clinical professionals

This degree can also lead to further training in:

◙ Adult nurse.
◙ Counsellor.
◙ Occupational therapist.
◙ Personal trainer.
◙ Physician associate.
◙ Social worker.
◙ Youth worker.

Challenges facing the health and social care sector:

The growing and ageing population means that more people are living longer with more than one lifelong diseases. This in turn stretch the demand in health and social care services which in turn put a strain in the funding for this sector.

Challenges facing health and social care industry including:

◙ The growing and ageing population
◙ The need for modernization of the NHS system to respond to the rising demand of these services
◙ The importance of keeping high quality of services and productivity
◙ Problematic with funding cuts and finance and economic problem faced by the government to keep the health and social care services running.

The workforce

There is more demand in this sector. Lack of staffing in this sector is affecting the stability and security for employment in this sector.



For more information on this article or to discuss its points please email elise.mumbanga@lsst.ac or kunal.mehta@lsst.ac

13 thoughts on “Health Promotion and Public Health Department open windows to exciting roles within the Health and Social Care sector for our students”

  1. Hi , I’m interested to do it , but I’m not sure what qualifications requirements.

    • Profession: Care worker
  2. I am very proud of our sister Mumbanga Elise. This is a great opportunity for my community. We are going to spread the news.

    • Profession: Congolese community Leader
  3. Why is it hard for men to talk about mental health problems?

    • Profession: senior lecturer

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