Credential in Rural and Remote Health

Dr Neil Shepherd is one of four NHS Highland doctors to receive the Rural and Remote Health Credential award and one of seven in the UK overall as announced by NHS Education for Scotland (NES).

The award of the Credential acknowledges the complexities of providing good and safe care in remote and rural communities. It also recognises the competencies and critical skills doctors bring to their practice of rural medicine and the example they set for future practitioners.

Neil is a rural emergency physician at Caithness General Hospital in Wick, which is on the most north easterly part of the Scottish mainland. He also works as a locum GP in Orkney.

Neil graduated from university in 2007 and completed GP training in 2014. He then worked as a locum in central and rural Scotland followed by two years suburban general practice in Wollongong, a coastal city south of Sydney in Australia. In 2017 Neil moved to Orkney and undertook the one-year GP Rural Fellowship in Acute Care. He then worked as a GP and took up the post at Caithness General Hospital in 2019. Neil passed the membership exams for the Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh in 2017 and applied for and was elected as a Fellow in 2023. Neil is also the Training Programme Director for Broad Based Training in Scotland with a cohort of 24 trainees spread across Highland, Grampian, Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Dumfries and Galloway.

Looking back on his career to date, Neil said:

“I didn’t know I wanted to work in a rural area until later in my training pathway. In my fifth year at university, I did a rural medicine placement in the Western Isles which I really enjoyed. I like the atmosphere in the rural hospitals, the small teams and the generalism.

“My wife is from Orkney, and we’ve travelled and spent a lot of time in rural areas visiting family and friends. So rural medicine made sense to me.

“At Caithness General I am one of six senior doctors working in the emergency department. I do two 12-hour shifts a week and then one or two days a week of general practice on Orkney. I enjoy the hospital work, but I think it is also important to keep up general practice so as not to lose my skills.”

“The team at Caithness General now has two Credential doctors and more colleagues are interested in applying for it. The qualification suits our role quite well. I was aware I was operating outside of the Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT) I hold, and the Credential enables generalist rural acute care skills to be formally recognised.

“The application process was clear and while I did not have to do much specific learning via the recognition route, I had to make quite a lot of pieces of evidence to match the curriculum capabilities and procedures. This involved uploading all my certificates, CV, reflecting on them all, discussing some cases, and making sure I addressed all aspects of the curriculum. In my case I had to do some additional reading on Ophthalmology to make a log for it. And I received guidance along the way as to areas to address and what to include.

“Having the Credential should make it easier for doctors to move jobs in future, either on a permanent basis or as temporary cover say in Skye or Fort William. The GMC-approved credential will be recognised on the doctor's entry on the medical register, which the public and employers can see.

“In the longer term I believe it will allow us to structure the educational programmes in rural hospitals to train the next generation of rural generalists.”

“For now, I’m very happy to have the recognition for the skills and competencies I have in the role I perform. I have a job I love and the opportunity to continue learning new skills and supporting the service.” Visit Credential in Rural and Remote Health | Turas | Learn for more information.