Overview
Top reasons to study with us
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Flexible format allows you to choose modules to suit your needs.
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You may be eligible for module exemptions with our Recognition and Accreditation of Prior Learning.
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Develop your knowledge, understanding and skills in line with the Medical Leadership Competency Framework.
About the Programme
The MSc in Medical Leadership is for clinicians at any stage of their careers who are interested in developing and proving their commitment to:
- Improving patient experience and service delivery
- Demonstrating caring, compassionate, authentic leadership
- Developing leadership capacity to achieve medical and organisational impact
The course is designed to develop your knowledge, understanding and skills in line with the Medical Leadership Competency Framework.
Course Structure
To achieve the Master's, you will first complete the modules required for the Postgraduate Certificate. This is shown in year 1 of the course structure below.
You will then further develop your skills by completing the following:
- Negotiating Your Professional Development
- A 60-credit work-based project
- Optional modules
Students may also make a claim (Accreditation of Prior Learning) to gain credits for exemption from some modules. This programme is a progression route from the Postgraduate Certificate.
Course duration
This programme will take 3 - 5 years to complete.
Start Dates
We are recruiting now for start dates throughout the year. For more information or to apply please make an enquiry to the CETAD team.
Entry requirements
Academic Requirements
Qualified clinicians holding an MBChB or equivalent and a Postgraduate Certificate in Medical Leadership or equivalent.
We may also consider non-standard applicants, please contact us for information.
If you have studied outside of the UK, we would advise you to check our list of international qualifications before submitting your application.
English Language Requirements
We may ask you to provide a recognised English language qualification, dependent upon your nationality and where you have studied previously.
We normally require an IELTS (Academic) Test with an overall score of at least 6.5, and a minimum of 6.0 in each element of the test. We also consider other English language qualifications.
Course structure
You will study a range of modules as part of your course, some examples of which are listed below.
Information contained on the website with respect to modules is correct at the time of publication, but changes may be necessary, for example as a result of student feedback, Professional Statutory and Regulatory Bodies' (PSRB) requirements, staff changes, and new research. Not all optional modules are available every year.
Core
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This core module is integral to your Postgraduate Certificate programme. You begin the module by taking part in activities that help you become more self-aware of your strengths, areas for improvement, and the skills and knowledge needed for your personal and professional growth. This helps you plan a course of study that aligns with your personal and professional development needs. Throughout the programme, you will receive support from a learning mentor.
After designing and negotiating your programme, this module will support you throughout your learning journey until its completion. The main purpose of the module is to help you learn about learning and develop this important lifelong and work-based skill. This will give you the confidence to critically evaluate and challenge ideas, advocate for your own opinions, and communicate complex ideas to different audiences.
The course considers the changing role of doctors and other clinical leads in relation to leadership and health service improvement. This provides the context for considering the current emphasis on the need for improvement. Topics covered are:
- The evolution of healthcare provision and exemplar models across the globe
- Critical consideration of key concepts in healthcare: The patient journey; Patient-centred health care; Evidence-based improvements; Inter-professional working
- Leading and influencing health service improvement
- Managing the tensions between quality healthcare provision, financial constraints, innovation and risk
- Key organisational and individual challenges for achieving health services improvement.
The module covers the following topics:
- History and development of Quality Improvement Science
- Models and techniques for Quality Improvement and Improvement Science
- Policy and context of Quality Improvement in healthcare
- Organisational readiness for Quality Improvement
By the end of the course, you will have developed
- A critical understanding of the role of improvement science in a healthcare context
- Knowledge and understanding of key models related to Quality and Improvement Science
- An understanding of improvement practices in relation to your own organisational role and context.
Optional
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This module takes you through the process of analysing drivers for change in your own organisation. It will develop your critical understanding of the external and internal factors that influence the need for change in your organisation and your skills in working with the complexity and uncertainty of change.
We will explore the change agenda in your local context and start to question and challenge existing organisational capacity to respond to these.
You will learn to identify your organisation's key internal and external drivers for change. You will be able to analyse how change is affecting your organisation and understand how change impacts you and your role.
Effective collaboration and successful teamwork are key features of successful organisations. This course will develop your critical understanding of the features of "high-performing teams" and your skills working as a team leader or member.
You will explore key concepts, models and theories of team roles and dynamics and relate these to your own experience. You will evaluate frameworks for assessing and developing team performance and consider their usefulness and applicability to your own practice.
We will explore with you the answers to some key questions:
- What is the impact of leadership on the performance and development of teams?
- What leadership skills and strategies are effective?
- What is 'collective leadership'?
- What are the specific challenges of working with inter-agency and inter-professional teams?
You will evaluate ideas, relate them to your situation and develop practical strategies you can adopt at work.
This module will cover:
- Managing people for effective performance through the life cycle of employment
- Managing day-to-day performance
- Dealing with performance issues
- Understanding an individual’s motivation, personality, and behaviours
- Developing appropriate, effective people management responses
- Leading and developing your staff
The module will help you develop an understanding of best practices for managing staff performance and a range of skills to enhance your ability to lead and manage staff routinely. You will increase your understanding of others' behaviours and motivations, explore a range of tactics to engage staff and improve your own ability to manage staff performance.
This module will cover topics including:
- Leadership in times of change
- Transitional to transformational leadership
- Appreciative leadership
- Stakeholder analysis
- Supporting staff in embracing change
- Capacity building to cope with uncertainty
- Achieving sustainable change
- Dealing with resistance to change
- Emotional Intelligence - self and social awareness
- Influencing skills
You will develop your understanding of various approaches to leading others through times of change. You will develop your ability to understand how to engage and influence others and how to take into account different individual’s responses to change. This learning will enhance your capacity to lead and manage people through change.
In this module, you will:
- Develop your knowledge and understanding of a range of strategies through which work-based change may be achieved
- Enhance your ability to select and apply work-based change models to suit your own organisation context
- Explore factors affecting the adoption of change in organisations, including power, ethics, culture and resourcing implications
- Design and plan a change project.
Core
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A key feature of a work-based learning programme is the requirement to learn from and for your work context. Work-based projects are purposeful work activities focusing on the real demands of your job. Engaging in a substantial work-based project provides opportunities for you to investigate, plan, develop, implement, review and learn from experience.
The final stage of a master's qualification requires you to engage in a substantial work-based, investigative project, which typically takes around six to nine months to complete.
This 60-credit project will be of sufficient complexity and timescale to allow you to:
- Plan and conduct a practitioner enquiry that contributes to knowledge creation and interpretation in your organisational context
- Develop mastery of key methods and techniques for undertaking practitioner enquiry, including action planning and problem-solving
- Identify, select, justify, plan and deliver a complex and multifaceted task related to the implementation of a work-based project
- Make a relevant and useful organisational impact; deploying resources effectively
Before embarking on a 60-credit project, you will complete a project proposal and ethics statement. Your mentor will provide you with formative feedback on your proposal before you submit your final version to the University Project Approval Committee.
This module is a key part of how we support you in customising your postgraduate programme.
As part of this, you will:
- Develop your learning objectives to meet your personal development needs, the needs of your workplace, and the University's requirements.
- Update your personal development plan.
- Engage with your key stakeholders to determine organisational needs and the requirements for a substantive work-based project.
- Negotiate your future postgraduate programme, selecting modules to best meet your needs.
- Outline a proposal for a work-based project to fulfil personal, organisational and University requirements.
You will also negotiate timescales, target award and award title to construct an achievable programme that meets your career aspirations and the requirements for success at postgraduate level.
Optional
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Creative thinking is the ability to imagine or invent something new and is a powerful skill in the work context spanning the spectrum of 'brilliant ideas' to 'better ways of doing things'. It can be closely linked to problem-solving. This module will help you develop your abilities and support you to develop a creative, innovative culture in your team.
You will examine concepts and models used to stimulate creative thinking and frameworks for problem-solving and assess their applicability and usefulness to your work. For example, you might look at the work of experts such as Edward de Bono and evaluate ideas such as ‘left and right brain thinking’, ‘six thinking hats’ and a ‘solution focus rather than a problem focus’.
Modern-day workplaces can be constantly changing, and many factors cause stress and prevent individuals from maintaining high levels of performance and wellbeing. In this module, we will explore workplace resilience as a tool to cope with modern stresses. This will provide you with an opportunity to build a strategy to improve your own resilience and that of others.
We will delve into the lessons learned from the science of positive psychology and other perspectives, such as the importance of confidence, adaptability, and purposefulness. We will also critically analyse current themes around new age perspectives, such as mindfulness, by looking at academic research and the applicability of techniques to workplace practice.
This module will cover:
- Quality Improvement – a key foundation to improving healthcare
- Measurement practice in healthcare
- Tools and techniques for measuring Quality Improvement
- Interpreting and using measurement in Quality Improvement
- Managing data into meaningful information
By the end of the module, you will be able to demonstrate a good understanding of key principles and techniques related to quality improvement and measurement in health care. You will be able to identify and evaluate different approaches for application in your own working context.
The topics covered in this module include:
- What is leadership? What is management?
- Leadership and management: current debates and issues in relation to the challenges of your own role
- Social and ethical challenges for management and leadership in changing organisational contexts; managing with integrity
- Organisation culture, values, power – impact on expectations and behaviours of leadership and management
- Understanding your own leadership style, behaviours, habits
- Evaluating your own strengths and development needs in the context of management and leadership
- Developing authentic leadership effectiveness – aligning your approach to fit with current and future organisational needs
This module will help you to understand different perceptions of effective leadership and management and examine the effectiveness of leadership and management in the context of your own organisation. You will be able to devise a strategy for your own personal leadership development to help you address the current challenges of your role.
This course sets the scene for understanding the context and agenda for organisation development. The topics covered include:
- What is Organisation Development? History, perspectives and definitions
- Theory and practice of Organisation Development
- Organisation Development and its links to business strategy, HR strategy, systems thinking and organisation learning
- Models for understanding your own organisation
- Developing organisation practice
- The role of Organisation Development Practitioner - limits and possibilities
Fees and funding
Fees for 2024/25 (Per 10 credit module)
Home and International: £500
- MSc/MA = 180 credits
- PGDip = 120 credits
- PGCert = 60 credits
Find more information on course fees and start dates for executive education programmes.
Additional fees and funding information accordion
There may be extra costs related to your course for items such as books, stationery, printing, photocopying, binding and general subsistence on trips and visits. Following graduation, you may need to pay a subscription to a professional body for some chosen careers.
Specific additional costs for studying at Lancaster are listed below.
College fees
Lancaster is proud to be one of only a handful of UK universities to have a collegiate system. Every student belongs to a college, and all students pay a small College Membership Fee which supports the running of college events and activities. Students on some distance-learning courses are not liable to pay a college fee.
For students starting in 2025, the fee is £40 for undergraduates and research students and £15 for students on one-year courses.
Computer equipment and internet access
To support your studies, you will also require access to a computer, along with reliable internet access. You will be able to access a range of software and services from a Windows, Mac, Chromebook or Linux device. For certain degree programmes, you may need a specific device, or we may provide you with a laptop and appropriate software - details of which will be available on relevant programme pages. A dedicated IT support helpdesk is available in the event of any problems.
The University provides limited financial support to assist students who do not have the required IT equipment or broadband support in place.
For most taught postgraduate applications there is a non-refundable application fee of £40. We cannot consider applications until this fee has been paid, as advised on our online secure payment system. There is no application fee for postgraduate research applications.
For some of our courses you will need to pay a deposit to accept your offer and secure your place. We will let you know in your offer letter if a deposit is required and you will be given a deadline date when this is due to be paid.
The fee that you pay will depend on whether you are considered to be a home or international student. Read more about how we assign your fee status.
If you are studying on a programme of more than one year’s duration, tuition fees are reviewed annually and are not fixed for the duration of your studies. Read more about fees in subsequent years.
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Management and Business
- Business Administration MBA
- Business Administration (Executive) MBA
- Business Analytics MSc
- Cyber Security Executive MBA MBA
- Digital Business, Innovation and Management MSc
- Human Resource Management MSc
- Human Resources and Consulting MA
- Innovation and Entrepreneurship MSc
- Innovation and Improvement Science MSc
- Innovation and Improvement Science PgCert
- Innovation and Improvement Science PgDip
- International Business and Strategy MSc
- International Masters Program for Managers No Qual (PGT)
- Leadership and Management PgCert
- Leadership and Management (Health Care) PgCert
- Leadership Practice MSc
- Leadership Practice PgDip
- Leadership Practice (Apprenticeship Pathway) PgDip
- Logistics and Supply Chain Management MSc
- Management MSc
- Management (Entrepreneurship and Strategy) PhD
- Management (Organisation, Work and Technology) PhD
- Management Science MRes
- Management Science PhD
- Management Science PhD (Integrated)
- Medical Leadership PgDip
- Medical Leadership PgCert
- Organisation, Work and Technology MRes
- Politics, Philosophy and Management MSc
- Professional Development PGCert
- Professional Practice MA
- Professional Practice MSc
- Professional Practice PgCert
- Professional Practice PgDip
- Project Management MSc
- Theory and Practice of Management PhD
- Theory and Practice of Management (IDPM) PhD
"It was brilliant having doctors from different specialties and grades as it provides interesting conversation topics." Medical Leadership student.
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Important Information
The information on this site relates primarily to 2025/2026 entry to the University and every effort has been taken to ensure the information is correct at the time of publication.
The University will use all reasonable effort to deliver the courses as described, but the University reserves the right to make changes to advertised courses. In exceptional circumstances that are beyond the University’s reasonable control (Force Majeure Events), we may need to amend the programmes and provision advertised. In this event, the University will take reasonable steps to minimise the disruption to your studies. If a course is withdrawn or if there are any fundamental changes to your course, we will give you reasonable notice and you will be entitled to request that you are considered for an alternative course or withdraw your application. You are advised to revisit our website for up-to-date course information before you submit your application.
More information on limits to the University’s liability can be found in our legal information.
Our Students’ Charter
We believe in the importance of a strong and productive partnership between our students and staff. In order to ensure your time at Lancaster is a positive experience we have worked with the Students’ Union to articulate this relationship and the standards to which the University and its students aspire. View our Charter and other policies.
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