Press Release

Monday 17th October 2011

European ‘recruit and retain’ project launched at Western Isles conference

Delegates from Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden joined NHS Western Isles staff and representatives from other parts of Scotland this month, for a series of workshops to discuss strategies for recruiting and retaining health care workers in remote rural areas.

NHS Western Isles, as the Lead Partner for the Northern Periphery Programme (NPP) project Recruit and Retain (Recruitment and Retention of Health Care Workers in Remote Rural Areas), hosted the first workshop of the project in Stornoway from October 10 - 12. Sandwiched between two days of project work, a conference entitled‘Strategies for Recruiting and Retaining Health Care Workers in Remote Rural Areas’ was held in An Lanntair in Stornoway.

The conference was opened by NHS Western Isles Vice Chair Malcolm Smith. Mr Smith welcomed around 70 delegates from the Western Isles, other parts of Scotland and the NPP partner countries; Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Scotland and Sweden. The Project Director, Andrew Sim, described the workings of the Northern Periphery Programme and gave details of the Recruit and Retain project.

Professor Sim explained: “The International setting was illustrated by presentations from Jim Buchan from Queen Margaret’s University in Edinburgh and Roger Strasser of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. Professor Buchan, representing the World Health Organisation (WHO), summarised the work of the recently completed WHO project on ‘Increasing Access to Health Workers in Remote and Rural Areas through Improved Retention’. He indicated how this work dovetailed with the objectives and work packages of the Recruit and Retain project. Professor Strasser used his immense experience of remote and rural health care in Australia and Canada to illustrate the problems of attracting health workers to remote rural areas and he explained how the establishment of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine was training doctors with the necessary skills to work in the more isolated areas of Northern Canada.”

The Scottish situation was described in four talks delivered by Stephen Hutchison, Consultant Physician in Palliative Medicine, on the work of the University of Aberdeen’s undergraduate medical student remote and rural option; by Gillian Needham, Regional Postgraduate Medical Dean of the North of Scotland Deanery, on the work NHS Education for Scotland (NES) is doing in postgraduate medical training for rural areas; by Pam Nicol, Programme Director of the Remote and Rural Healthcare Educational Alliance (RRHEAL) on the way RRHEAL is providing education and training programmes for health care workers in rural areas; and finally by David Green, Principal of Lews Castle College, University of Highlands and Islands (UHI), on how UHI is working to provide educational opportunities for people living in remote rural areas and how this incorporates courses needed for remote and rural health care.

The Western Isles setting was portrayed by presentations on the challenges of healthcare recruitment in the Western Isles by Gordon Jamieson, NHS Western Isles Chief Executive, on the nursing perspective by Annetta Smith, Associate Head of School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health at the Western Isles Campus of Stirling University, and on the recruitment and retention of dental professionals in remote rural areas by John Lyon, Chief Administrative Dental Officer for NHS Western Isles.

The conference was brought to a conclusion by a discussion facilitated by Jim Ward, Medical Director of NHS Western Isles, on the topics the Recruit and Retention project should focus on over the next two years.

The Recruit and Retain project, which is resourced through the European Regional Development Fund, sets out to find solutions to the persistent problem of difficulties in recruiting and retaining high quality health care workers for the remote rural areas of Northern Europe.

It has five partners from the Agency for Health Protection in Nuuk, Greenland, from FSAAkureyriHospital in Akureyri, Iceland, from Helse Finnmark Health Trust in Finnmark, Norway, from the County of Västerbotten, Umeå, Sweden and from NHS Western Isles, Stornoway, Scotland.

Deanne Gilbert, NPP Project Manager, said: “The project will produce a business plan to develop a system to deliver a service package for the recruitment and retention of health care workers in remote rural areas. It is expected that such a system would take on many different forms and may vary from one country to another.”

ends

Notes for Editors:

Pictured are speakers from Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Scotland and Sweden, at the opening conference in An Lanntair, Stornoway.

Contact:

Maggie Fraser

Communications Manager

01851 708060

07810527457

Press Releases/NPP/Oct 2011NHS Western Isles Press Release

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