National Centre for Remote and Rural Health and Care Information Hub

The National Centre for Remote and Rural Health and Care ( NC R&R HC)  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 NC R&R HC with a focus on supporting improved remote and rural primary and community healthcare across Scotland.

The Scottish Government and NES have committed £3.03m from October 2023 until September 2025 to support the NC R&R HC Phase 1 programme of work with a focus on Primary Care as an initial proof of concept.

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.

The NC R&R HC will do this with work centred on improving the sustainability, capacity, and capability of the remote, rural and island primary care and community-based workforce and service delivery.

The NC R&R HC is taking a systematic approach to the planning and delivery of remote and rural primary healthcare and community services across all of Scotland, achieving excellence in the design, delivery, and evaluation of services through improved remote and rural healthcare specific research, education, leadership, practice, recruitment, and retention that have measurable impact.

We do this through sharing  our specialist knowledge, evidence base and by bringing our remote , rural and island healthcare team of subject experts in the NC R&R HC to work collaboratively with  a wide range of stakeholders, partners and colleagues across Scotland, the UK and internationally.

There are a range of immediate issues unique to the provision of remote and rural primary and community  healthcare that the Centre will focus on to achieve measurable improvements in the phase 1 programme of work.

These include:

• Improving 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 use of new evidence based approaches.
• Employing evidence based approaches to improve support and development opportunities for existing and new staff across the workforce to build and cohesive, resilient and skilled remote and rural primary care and community based teams.
• Increase the range and amount of practical experience that takes places within  remote , rural and island community settings during training for medical and healthcare staff.
• Increase the specific data and intelligence that is gathered  and shared in relation to the particular and unique remote , rural and island population health needs in order to focus training, education and research within the priority areas that are disproportionately impacting on the health and wellbeing of people living in remote , rural and island communities.
• Develop and evaluate new ways of delivering improved primary and community care health services in partnership with practitioners , citizens and partner agencies.
• Develop and deliver unique training , education and  leadership development programmes that equip remote and rural healthcare staff to innovate and lead service improvements aligned to the changing needs of their remote and rural communities.