Scottish Government’s incentive scheme to keep trainee doctors
This article sets out part of the response to a massive challenge of recruiting rural health care professionals. See the next bit of Hinterland for a sense of the scale of the problem. I often feature innovation from Scotland that we need to learn from. It tells us:
The Scottish Government is to introduce incentives to keep trainee doctors in the country as part of the new graduate level medical course. The four-year course will have 40 places available with the aim of addressing the GP crisis in rural areas and is being delivered by medical schools in St Andrews and Dundee in collaboration with the University of the Highlands and Islands. Shona Robison revealed the new course will have an “element of bonding” in a written answer to shadow health secretary Miles Briggs who asked how it will encourage Scottish-domiciled students to apply. A similar bonding scheme currently operates in Wales and takes a four-pronged approach targeting GPs at different stages of their careers – in a bid to convince them to live and work in the country. It includes an incentive scheme for a limited number of posts for some trainees and is dependent on GPs working in the area for an agreed length of time. Applications for the new course which offers existing graduates a route into medicine will open in September, Health Secretary Shona Robison confirmed last month. The course, which will begin next Autumn, will be open to existing graduates from any discipline with an interest in pursuing a medical degree.