'Come and work here!' Exploring the role of local community-led initiatives to improve recruitment and retention of healthcare staff in remote and rural areas

Background Recruitment and retention of healthcare staff in rural and remote areas is a challenge for health services. Much of the focus of research in this area has been on work organisation and practitioners themselves. (Several members of the applicant team are currently involved in a study in Scotland of the experiences and preferences of doctors in remote areas, funded by the Scottish Chief Scientist Office (CSO), to develop new interventions to improve recruitment). However there has been less focus on the experiences of the people in remote and rural communities and what they themselves can do to attract staff. Some communities have experimented proactively with initiatives to promote their local area; to get involved in the recruitment and selection process; and to welcome and integrate new health professionals and their family members into local life. These community-led initiatives are often ad hoc and undocumented; there is potential learning about what has worked and what has been less successful that remains untapped. This project has been suggested by the public research partners on our CSO study as a way to capture this learning. One is now a co-applicant on this proposal. Aim To improve recruitment and retention of healthcare practitioners in remote and rural areas Objectives 1. To explore the experiences of remote and rural communities of trying to attract healthcare staff to their area 2. To map local context and describe initiatives undertaken to improve recruitment 3. To understand how community initiatives have been received by staff who have been recruited and their families 4. To assess which initiatives seem to have been most successful (or not) and why 5. To provide resources for other communities and the NHS based on this learning Project plan This is a qualitative study with three parts: 1) Mapping: Drawing on our existing network of PPI and professional contacts, we will identify 6 diverse remote and rural communities, 4 in Scotland and 2 in Yorkshire/North East England. In each we will conduct an initial site visit (if possible) and focus group to identify, describe and categorise different types of community-led recruitment and retention initiatives which have been tried. Participants may include local councillors/council officials and representatives of other local community organisations (e.g. Chambers of Commerce, Tourist Boards, schools). 2) Interview study: In-depth interviews with up to 30 people who have been involved in designing recruitment and retention initiatives in these areas, and professionals (including nurses and allied health) and family members who have been the intended audience of such initiatives. Interviews will be analysed thematically. 3) Job advert/recruitment campaign analysis: as part of our existing grant, we are already collecting examples of job adverts for doctors (written and video). We will extend this to include adverts for other professionals, identified both by interview and focus group participants, and by wider searching of publicly available sources. We will analyse both visual and text content. Outputs and dissemination We will develop a repository of initiatives and suggestions for other local communities and the NHS. Our advisory panel includes a range of people with high-level links to remote and rural workforce policy and health professional training in both England and Scotland, who will support national dissemination