Occupational Safety, Health and Environmental Management MSc/PGDip

Course content

What will you study on the MSc/PGDip Occupational Safety, Health and Environmental Management?

This course has a strong practical element and you'll work on management reports, accident appraisals, audits and other exercises designed to reflect the work you'll do in real life situations. You will cover factors affecting health and safety at work, different approaches to occupational health, and examine such hazards as chemical, plant, equipment, electricity, fire, explosive materials and biological. You'll also study occupational psychology and learn how the culture, psychology and management of a workplace, and individuals' behaviour, attitudes and motivation can affect health and safety.

What will you gain?

As well as gaining an in-depth understanding of your subject, you will also be a competent practitioner who is able to lead health and safety improvement in the workplace.You will learn the legal, technical and scientific knowledge you need to recognise, assess, and problem solve risks.You will understand health and safety in high-risk industries including agriculture, construction, and manufacturing, and will be able to develop an organisation's safety policy, accident reporting, policy and ethics, and legislation. You'll also improve your negotiation, advocacy, management, leadership, communication and teamwork skills.

This module aims to provide knowledge and critical insight into environmental practices of pollution prevention. A particular focus on relevant environmental practitioner requirements in industry is provided. It focuses upon common commercial pollutants and the systems that govern their control and management in the workplace also considering the policy and legal basis. Practitioner management techniques and methods are provided with the objective of developing competence in assessing and managing workplace environmental aspects to improve legal compliance and environmental performance.

This module provides students with an understanding of the factors that shape occupational health and safety at work. By evaluating these factors - legal, policy, human and organisational – students will be able to determine the legal and theoretical basis to the current approaches to occupational health and how change is caused by external influencing factors.

This module aims to provide an overview of the theory and application of risk management as it is applied at a strategic level from a multi-disciplinary, science-led perspective and explore frameworks that can be used to relate the functions of risk management and the actors that perform them in order to enable participants to better understand the process of decision making and the factors which influence it. Where students are taking this module as part of programmes other than risk management, specific issues relating to their specific discipline will be addressed through programme specific components. For risk management students the module complements the other core modules which further evaluate economic, psychological, social, communicative and cultural factors which affect choice and the implications this has for decision making.

The module aims to enhance the skills of inspection, testing and evaluation in respect of the physical and traumatic dangers presented by the nature and use of premises, plant, equipment and commonly occurring processes, together with the skills to promote remedial and proactive risk management improvement strategies in high risk environments.

This module teaches students to thoroughly appraise and evaluate the theoretical and practical aspects of identifying, managing and controlling occupational health and safety risks.

This module enables students to appraise and evaluate the legal, theoretical and practical aspects of identifying, controlling and managing the risk presented by a range of workplace hazardous agents and to integrate the concepts of healthy workplaces and health and well being into occupational health and safety practice.

This module will enable students to examine and evaluate core principles and concepts of organisational psychology and ergonomics as it relates to workplace culture, behaviour and design. The module objective is to provide students with the knowledge and comprehension of underlying organisational and human factors that impact on good safety performance in the context of hazard management.

The aim of this module is to take an organisational and strategic view of management, leadership, partnership and policy for occupational health and safety together with key legal principles on which safety law is based. By analysing and evaluating these legal, policy and managerial approaches, students will be able to determine the basis to the current approaches to occupational health and place it within a political, environmental, social and economic context.

This module will cover experimental design, quantitative and qualitative analysis, and management, presentation and computing skills. Students will learn to evaluate different research techniques, and search for and review relevant literature.

You can find more information about this course in the programme specification. Module and programme information is indicative and may be subject to change.