In 2016 the Scottish Government funded the Scottish Rural Medicine Collaborative (SRMC) from the GP Recruitment and Retention fund to work towards the following objectives:

  • Understand and address retention issues for working age GPs;
  • Promote Scottish General Practice as a positive career choice;
  • Encourage alumni to stay in / return to Scotland;
  • Develop sustainable models of remote and rural primary care;
  • Support the education infrastructure in primary care;
  • Providing high quality support and information for prospective GPs in Scotland;
  • Make the most of expertise of remote and rural GPs at the end of their careers;
  • Support implementation of NHS Scotland Partnership Information Network (PIN) policies.

Since then the SRMC has played a significant role in developing ways to improve the recruitment and retention of people working in Primary Care and particularly in rural Scotland.

How do we do things?

The SRMC has gathered together people from across Scotland with knowledge, experience and insight of Primary Care and created a supportive and creative collaborative working environment. Emphasis is given to building high trust working relationships which lead to effective knowledge and experience sharing which in turn leads to deeper understanding of the issues to be addressed which ultimately results in the development of well thought through solutions.

The outputs arising from this collaborative working demonstrate that having the right blend of individuals, structure and environment allows for the co-production of effective solutions.

Collaborative working is strengthened by dedicated and visible clinical leadership and supported by professional project management expertise.

Governance of the SRMC is provided by the Programme Board.

Who are we?

What have we achieved?

Phase One of the SRMC was from May 2017 to March 2019 and during this time we progressed work on the following 2016 GP Recruitment and Retention Fund objectives:

Understanding and addressing the recruitment/retention issues and promoting GP as a positive career choice

  • Identified barriers and worked with others to improve and develop common recruitment mechanisms e.g. the development of a single recruitment “GP Jobs” website for all GPs wishing to work in Scotland.
  • Developed reusable and adaptable marketing resources to deliver consistent results, including regular and effective attendance at a range of recruitment opportunities (i.e. GP Conferences / events )
  • Developed a high quality support website and information portal that brings together project updates (e.g. conferences, blogs) and resources such as the newly developed “Recruitment Good Practice Guidelines” and the “Yearly Wheel” for use by a wide range of stakeholders such as Practice Managers, GPs and communities.
  • Influenced the creation of a recognisable Rural GP brand for Scotland.

Valuing rural practice in Scotland / supporting the education structure in Primary Care

  • Facilitating and funding the BASICS Scotland Portfolio Pre-Hospital Care (PHEC) training programme.
  • Creating a better understanding of the specific requirements of Scotland’s “Rural Pipeline” (the training process from school through to a fully qualified rural GP). Helping develop an electives programme that is fit for purpose.
  • Being a key stakeholder in the delivery of the bi-annual “Rethinking Remote” international conference and providing input to the Rural Advance Practitioner Programme; “Making it Work”; and the Scottish Rural Health Partnership schemes of work.
  • Supporting the creation of networks, relationships and collaborative working between individuals and organisations to achieve a shared focus and understanding of the issues with Rural GP recruitment & retention and potential strategies to address these.

Developing high quality support and information for prospective GPs in Scotland / developing sustainable models for Primary Care

  • Co-producing the building blocks for the ground breaking test site for a specialised rural recruitment ‘bureau.’ (The “Rediscover the Joy of Rural General Practice” project.) This project has led to the additional recruitment of a number of new GPs who are now beginning to take up posts across rural Scotland.
  • SRMC will have key responsibility to evaluate and implement lessons learned as the project develops. This action learning approach is about delivering results as quickly as possible whilst simultaneously evaluating effectiveness to ensure that practice stability is improved and maintained.

A summary of  SRMC achievements in Phase One

Phase Two began in April 2019 following the securing of funding from the Scottish Government which enabled us to set SRMC objectives 2019

Timeline

The timeline tells the story of the Scottish Rural Medicine Collaborative (SRMC). It reminds us of the initiatives that came before the establishment of the SRMC and helps us recognise the contributions they made to get us to where we are now. It also helps track the input from Scottish Government and professional bodies to the development of medicine in rural Scotland.

SRMC timeline

What about the future?

The Primary Care landscape in Scotland continues to evolve following the significant changes introduced with the implementation of the new Scottish GP contract in January 2018. Concerns raised by rural GPs have helped focus attention on rural Primary Care and a lot has been learned. Work around both rural and urban sustainability issues has also helped inform understanding.

It is clear that a lot of the earlier work of the SRMC, which focussed on rural GP recruitment and retention, is transferrable to the wider Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) and to urban General Practice. This work needs to be capitalised on. There is now a maturity of understanding around the needs of rural recruitment and retention, along with capacity in the SRMC team to deliver further successful outcomes. The appointment of two additional Project Managers in April 2019 puts SRMC in a strong position to utilise the learning, the resources and the networks developed to further impact Primary Care recruitment and retention across Scotland.

This is a critical time for rural Primary Care with an evolving strategy developing. It is hoped that SRMC can help to inform and influence the development of this strategy and be seen as a continuing benefit in supporting the recruitment and retention of GPs and the wider Multi-Disciplinary Teams across Scotland.

Gallery

The gallery shows what we've been doing and who has been involved. Recruitment events, conferences, workshops, etc. You'll spot Mooey McMooFace the SRMC mascot who travels to wherever we're exhibiting.

Please contact us if you have a photo that could be included. scottish.ruralmed@nhs.net

Collage of gallery images