The course is taught in the new and fully-equipped science laboratories on the sixth floor of our Knightstone building in the centre of Weston. Some sessions are also taught on-line and few minutes’ walk away in our new University Centre in the Winter Gardens on Weston seafront, which is a modern and bright study area with computer suites and a dedicated higher education library.

This degree course also offers plenty of opportunities for practical trips and fieldwork, with UCW Public and Environmental Health students in recent years having visited specialist sites such as food manufacturers and power plants and undertaken health and safety audits at Jaguar Land Rover, Thatcher’s Cider and at music festivals.

We even offer scholarships to support students to undertake work experience for the Environment Agency in Gibraltar. Indeed, one of our graduates recently accepted a full-time role with the agency as an Environmental Health Officer.

Please click on the next tab to find out more about what you’ll learn on this programme and how it is delivered. The dropdowns below deal with our partnership with UWE Bristol and what is and isn’t included in the tuition fees.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the course leader Mark Hardwick, lecturer Nahum Kidan or UCW’s HEART team. It would also be great to meet you and show you around at our next Open Day.

All of the modules on this course are compulsory and worth either 20, 30 or 40 credits. Successful completion of all of the modules in the first year is worth 120 credits at Level 4 and equivalent to a Certificate of Higher Education. Successful completion of the second year is worth 120 credits at Level 5 and equivalent to a Diploma of Higher Education. Completing all three years of student (on a full-time basis) will lead to the award of a BSc degree.

Full-time year 1:

• Environmental Health Law (30 credits)
• Environmental Impact (30 credits)
• Introduction to Professional Practice (30 credits)
• Principles of Public Health (30 credits)

Full-time year 2:

• Environmental Protection (30 credits)
• Food Control (30 credits)
• Health, Safety and Risk (30 credits)
• Housing and the Built Environment (30 credits)

Full-time year 3:

• Environmental Health Project (40 credits)
• Professional Practice (20 credits)
• Public Health in Action (30 credits)
• Risk Management Systems (30 credits)

This course is taught via a combination of lectures, seminars, skills practice, presentations, fieldwork, case studies and group workshops. UCW’s Higher Education Academic Development team also deliver a series of sessions on degree-level research and academic writing to all first-year students. When not in scheduled lecturers and seminars, students are expected to continue learning through independent self-study. This involves reading relevant literature, working on individual and group projects, and undertaking research in preparation for coursework and exams.

The course is taught by lecturers who have been EHPs in a number of areas themselves, and our great links with the CIEH are demonstrated by our lecturers, students and graduates winning the CIEH Team of the Year Award in 2019.

You’ll undertake academic and practical studies of the scientific principles that govern biological, physical, chemical, sociological and psychological stressors in a public and environmental health context.

The classroom-based aspects of the course also cover the primary standards, guidelines and legislation relating to environmental health, and professional engagement with risk and hazard assessments.

This course has an average of 13.5 hours of scheduled teaching per week. This course also has a work placement element totalling 100 hours.

At UCW, we also understand that some students benefit from more contact time with lecturers than is the norm at a traditional university, so we do all we can to make sure academic staff are available for their students when they are needed.

Assessment is varied and includes written reports, essays, laboratory reports, research projects, interviews, presentations, field work reports, health campaigns, examinations. Exams are usually online or are practical assessments.

• Graduates are well placed to secure rewarding jobs to work towards the status of Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner, or to progress to postgraduate study.
• UCW Public and Environmental Health graduates have progressed to public and private sector environmental health roles in the South West and also as far afield as Gibraltar and New Zealand, and for great organisations including NSF International, Argent Risk Management Systems, Goldman Sachs, MSNBC Universal and more.

Qualification requirements

• UCAS Tariff - 80 points
• A level - CDD
• Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016) - MMP
• Access to HE Diploma - M: 15 credits
• GCSE/National 4/National 5
• English and Maths at c/4
• T Level - P
• Applicants with a level 5 qualification such as HND, Foundation Degree, or equivalent can be considered for 3rd year entry. Please contact admissions@ucw.ac.uk to discuss your application further.

There are no additional costs for this course.

UCW Terms and Conditions

Programme Specification