Recruitment and Retention
Recruitment and retention is one of the four pillars that make up the Centre's work plan. In this section you will find information about remote and rural programmes of work and recruitment and retention resources.
Join the Recruitment & Retention Stakeholder Reference Group
The National Centre for Remote & Rural Health & Care wish to share its plans to establish a Recruitment and Retention Stakeholder Reference Group.
The National Centre for Remote and Rural Health and Care prioritises community accountability and inclusive stakeholder engagement as foundational principles across all its activities. Recognising that effective healthcare solutions must be rooted in the lived experiences of remote, rural, and island communities, the Centre ensures that community voices directly inform decision-making, fostering a sense of ownership and trust, and ultimately driving sustainable improvements in health and wellbeing.
The Stakeholder Reference Group will play a crucial role in informing and guiding priorities for practical programmes of work that are undertaken by the National Centre in improving remote, rural, and island recruitment and retention. As a member of the Stakeholder Reference Group, you will have the opportunity to participate in discussions that help shape and inform the recruitment and retention work of the National Centre for Scotland’s remote, rural, and island contexts.
Meetings will be held online on a quarterly basis and will last approximately 1.5 hours.
The Centre will ensure that group size is manageable, but representative of stakeholder's interests. Therefore, the group will be small in number but will aim to be inclusive and diverse in its membership. If you are interested and available to participate in the reference group please complete the short application in the link below.
The National Centre team will consider all applications received by Friday 18th April 2025 to establish the reference group from May 2025 onwards.
The Centre welcomes your interest in joining this group. Please submit your application via our Form by close of business on Friday 18th April 2025. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Centre Team at nes.ruralteam@nhs.scot
Applicants will be advised of the outcome of their application by email on or before Friday 2nd May 2025.
Latest News
National Centre team attends Isle of Skye Recruitment Event in January 2025
The National Centre for Remote and Rural Health and Care was commissioned by the Scottish Government in 2022. NHS Education for Scotland (NES) has been funded by the Scottish Government, Primary Care Directorate to design and deliver Phase 1 of the National Centre for Remote and Rural Health and Care. Our aim is to support the delivery of improved healthcare for remote, rural and island communities across Scotland and reduce remote, rural and island health and wellbeing inequalities. Recruitment and retention of healthcare staff is a key area central to the work of the National Centre. Our aims are to:
- Improve the sustainability, capacity and capability across the remote, rural and island workforce though measurably improved attraction and retention of staff. This needs to be achieved through the use of new evidence-based approaches.
- Employ evidence-based approaches to improve support and development opportunities for existing and new staff across the workforce to build cohesive, resilient and skilled remote and rural primary care and community-based teams.
We were delighted to attend the Work on Skye event in January 2025, and to meet community members of all ages and backgrounds. At our stall we asked people to give their opinions on strategies and approaches to attracting healthcare staff to work on Skye, and to identify any key issues for young people in the community that would help them stay and work in a healthcare role.
Listening to remote, rural and island communities' experiences, thoughts and opinions is an important aspect of our work, and we enjoyed the opportunity to engage in conversations with local community members about the issues that matter the most to them. We are developing an information resource to help health boards and community groups make the best use of collaborative strategies and activities to support the recruitment and retention of healthcare professionals in their own areas across Scotland.
If you would like to be kept more up to date with the progress of the National Centre, add your name to our stakeholder list and we'll keep you up to date.
Evidence Based Resources
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WHO guideline on health workforce development, attraction, recruitment and retention in rural and remote areas Download (2 MB)
An update of the WHO guideline Increasing access to health workers in remote and rural areas through improved retention: global policy recommendations (2010). 6 May 2021 Guideline
