Recruit and Retain is a project which sets out to find solutions to the persistent problem of difficulties in recruiting and retaining high quality people to work in the public sector in the remote rural areas of Northern Europe. The core project will address issues and solutions with respect to health care workers. The Recruit and Retain Strategic... More...

Recruit and Retain is a project which sets out to find solutions to the persistent problem of difficulties in recruiting and retaining high quality people to work in the public sector in the remote rural areas of Northern Europe. The core project will address issues and solutions with respect to health care workers. The Recruit and Retain Strategic Management Group will identify areas within the core project work which are applicable to other public service workers. This will relate to those people working in education, the social services, the fire and emergency services and local government civil servants and will constitute the additional work of the Strategic project.

Within its core service package innovative approaches to:

• training
• professional development and skills maintenance
• combating isolation
• securing social and family stability

will be sought, advanced and tested. This will allow a novel long term service provision plan for all public sector workers to be developed in the form of a business model capable of being adapted to differing regional contexts at both a regional and national level.

The Recruit & Retain project is a strategic project.

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Inhabitants of remote rural areas must have confidence that their health care requirements will be met by well trained, innovative health care providers capable of delivering a safe, modern and high quality service. The overall objective of Recruit and Retain will be to put in place mechanisms whereby front line health care providers can be identif... More...

Inhabitants of remote rural areas must have confidence that their health care requirements will be met by well trained, innovative health care providers capable of delivering a safe, modern and high quality service.

The overall objective of Recruit and Retain will be to put in place mechanisms whereby front line health care providers can be identified, encouraged, trained and supported to work in a remote rural community. This will result in the production of a sustainable workforce for a reliable health care service.

The health care professionals referred to in this project are those who provide frontline health care services and will include doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and newer forms of health care workers such as physician’s assistants.

To pursue this objective Recruit and Retain will obtain information on:

• why health care workers are reluctant to consider working in a remote rural area
• why health care workers are pleased to be working in a remote rural area
• what health care workers require to start working in a remote rural area
• what health care workers require to continue working in a remote rural area
• why  health care workers leave a position in a remote rural area

It is expected that this information will indicate the need to develop products and services which, amongst other things, will:

• advertise and promote the opportunities for health care providers in remote rural areas and emphasise the positive aspects of working in this challenging environment
• develop ways to reduce professional isolation by traditional (sabbaticals, secondment) and innovative (broadband, mobile phone, video conferencing ) methods
• include a holistic perspective which incorporates “buddying” for new recruits and long term professional mentoring for established employees
• generate urban rural partnerships, which include links with universities, professional training bodies, and service providers to underpin the remote rural public service
• find ways to support spouses, social networks, housing, child care and schooling
• encourage the development of systems which enable local remote rural populations and local authorities to support their sustainable and committed public service.

To meet the overall objective recruitment and retention plans incorporating the products and services described above will be developed, tested, validated and implemented during the period of the project.

Using the project’s core work on health care providers the Recruit and Retain Strategic Management Group will monitor the work as it progresses. The Strategic Management Group will ensure that:

• Products and services identified in the main project will be scrutinised for relevance to the wider public service sector

• Once identified, such products and services will be embedded with additional features necessary to ensure wider public service utilisation

• Wherever possible such products and services will be verified by the different public service bodies as being relevant to the public service sector

• The business model and connected service provision plans will be produced in such a way that they can be adapted for use in different NPP regional contexts

This will allow the identification of information, issues, products and services which have relevance to other public service workers. This process will involve reporting directly to the Recruit and Retain Steering Committee in order to determine how this will be fed back into the main project work.

The last six months of the project (effectively an extension of 6 months onto the original Recruit and Retain project) will be devoted solely to development of products and services relevant to the public services as a whole.

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A major component of the Recruit and Retain objective will be the production of a business plan for the development of a private/public organisation to deliver an all inclusive service package for the recruitment and retention of health care providers in remote rural communities of the Northern Periphery Programme area. It is recognised that s... More...

A major component of the Recruit and Retain objective will be the production of a business plan for the development of a private/public organisation to deliver an all inclusive service package for the recruitment and retention of health care providers in remote rural communities of the Northern Periphery Programme area. It is recognised that such an organisation could take on many different forms and may vary from one country to another; because of this each partner will seek guidance from the appropriate authorities in their own country to ensure compatibility and coherence.

Recruit and Retain partnerhsip will deliver two business plans:

• one specifically for the development of a private/public organisation to deliver an all inclusive service package for the recruitment and retention of health care providers in remote rural communities of the Northern Periphery Programme area

• the other to the production of a similar business plan which deals with the public service sector as a whole.

It is expected that the project will develop products and services which:

• advertise and promote the opportunities for health care providers in remote rural areas and emphasise the positive aspects of working in this challenging environment

• develop ways to reduce professional isolation by traditional (sabbaticals, secondment) and innovative (broadband, mobile phone, video conferencing ) methods

• include a holistic perspective which incorporates “buddying” for new recruits and long term professional mentoring for established employees

• generate urban rural partnerships, which include links with universities, professional training bodies, and service providers to underpin the remote rural public service

• find ways to support spouses, social networks, housing, child care and schooling

• encourage the development of systems which enable local remote rural populations and local authorities to support their sustainable and committed public service.

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