MSc Health Data Science

For entry in the academic year beginning September 2026, the tuition fees are as follows:

• MSc (full-time)
  UK students (per annum): £15,800
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £35,700
• PGDip (full-time)
  UK students (per annum): £12,600
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £28,600
• PGDip (part-time)
  UK students (per annum): £6,300
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £14,300
• PGCert (full-time)
  UK students (per annum): £6,300
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £14,300
• PGCert (part-time)
  UK students (per annum): £3,150
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £7,150

Further information for EU students can be found on our dedicated EU page.

The course fees include all the tuition, technical support and examinations required for the course. All fees for entry will be subject to yearly review. Courses lasting more than one year may be subject to incremental rises per annum. For general fees information please visit: postgraduate fees . Always contact the department if you are unsure which fee applies to your qualification award and method of attendance.

The University permits applicants with comparable previous experience to submit an application for consideration of AP(E)L Accreditation Prior (Experiential) Learning. The maximum AP(E)L is 15 credits to a PGCert, 45 credits to a PGDip and 60 credits to a MSc.

If your AP(E)L application is successful, the University charges £30 for every 15 credits of AP(E)L. The overall tuition fee is adjusted and then the administrative charge is applied.

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

For the latest scholarship and bursary information please visit the fees and funding page .

The Catherine Chisholm scholarship is applicable to students from selected countries for this course. Find out more details on the scholarship page .

The University of Manchester is proud to offer six fully-funded scholarships to Women from Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand or Timor-Leste completing specific master's courses in STEM subjects. Please visit the STEM scholarship page for more information.

Central to any efforts to build an efficient health care system, or in supporting evidence-based medicine, is the need to capture information around patient diagnosis and medical treatment. At the core of this activity is the development of electronic patient records.

Good quality electronic patient records require us to have systematic and unambiguous tools for recording the health state of a patient, and the treatments they receive. This unit provides a basic introduction to the development and use of electronic patient records, their long history, and the challenges still to be overcome.

Part 1: Coding

• Introduce students to basic concepts in coding systems used in health care
• Examine the history of coding schemes in medicine
• Explore some of the current coding schemes in detail (Read codes) and discuss future developments (Snomed)
• Examine some of the issues and problems around the use and maintenance of coding schemes
• Discuss the development and deployment of electronic patient records (EPRs)
• Explore some of the current coding schemes in detail SNOMED CT, ICD, and their evolution from previous systems (Read codes).

Part 2: Sharing

• Introduce students to basic concepts in of interoperability in health care
• Introduce basic messaging concepts, including an overview of HL7 FHIR
• Introduce issues and problems around data interoperability
• Examine strategies for data integration

Part3: Human Factors 

EPRs in practice

• Introduce students to basic concepts in of organisational and human factors in e-health
• Explore issues of EPRs in practice
• Introduce basic concepts around qualitative research methodologies
• Introduce basic concepts around useability in healthcare
• Introduce concepts around organisational change in the health service

• Basic understanding of electronic patient records. An understanding of the complexities and problems in capturing clinical data. An understanding of the ethical and privacy issues surrounding medical data governance.

• An understanding of the theoretical underpinning of coding schemes and data sharing protocols. Critical evaluation of health care literature around EPRs

• Basic familiarity with the process of medical coding. Ability to understand the processes involved in mapping between different coding schemes. Ability to understand the processes involved in medical data sharing. Ability to critically evaluate current literature on EPRs.

• Interdisciplinary teamworking.  Self-directed learning. Reflection upon learning.

Students work in groups exploring health informatics issues around a particular disease pathway. During each day of the course groups will report back on two occasions on the work they have done - and on which they will receive formative feedback from the course tutors. Students will keep a record of their groupwork activities and make this available to their tutors. Students will, as a group, develop a presentation file showcasing their groupwork. Students will receive formative and summative feedback on their groupwork and presentation (30 marks total) The main (70%) assessment is an individual report which may be based on this work or on any patient-centric aspect of Health Informatics applications, bringing in the themes of this course. Students will be given detailed feedback on any report plan before the final report is written.