NHS Education for Scotland (NES) provides many opportunities through existing programmes to develop relevant, accessible and well-supported training and education for rural staff. 

RRHEAL is designed to build on current NES workstreams, to address the need for a co-ordinated approach to the development of NES Remote and Rural activity and be a sustainable structure supporting rural education for the NHS in Scotland for the future.

The remote and rural healthcare workforce in Scotland delivers care across some of Europe's most remote areas.  However this group of staff may be disadvantaged with regard to education and development opportunities.  Staff in remote and rural areas need to be able to access the same level and quality of education as colleagues in urban areas.  RRHEAL has been established to address this shortfall.

RRHEAL will work alongside colleagues to develop sustainable programmes - the need for staff to be supported in not simply gaining but also maintaining skills and knowledge.  Recognition as to the transferability of skills across different clinical contexts will be an integral part of this work.

RRHEAL will achieve its aims by:

• Mapping existing and new remote and rural education programmes / opportunities identifying educational needs gaps.   
• By means of establishing a national education network RRHEAL will link remote and rural health services to providers; concurrently RRHEAL will work with technology experts to support streamlined learner access to remote and rural education information and knowledge for front line staff.
• Advising on the use of appropriate methods of delivering education to remote and rural staff by working alongside Alliance and NES colleagues and NHS service partners during the design phase of educational programmes.
• Promoting remote and rural healthcare work as a career and supporting R & R role development.
• Designing effective evaluation tools to assess the impact of remote and rural education and training.

The RRHEAL administrative department can be found on the first floor of Phase 2 of the Centre for Health Science. 

For further information please email Roslyn MacDonald or  click here to visit the RRHEAL website.