HEE South West (HEESW) plan to ultimately develop this scheme into a Global Health (GH) accreditation programme with additional training and experience. We support the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges postgraduate Global Health competencies and the benefits to be gained of incorporation of these into Postgraduate curriculae.
As a GH fellow you will have 3 extra GH specific training days a year, and you will be linked to a network of experienced mentors. This system plans to cater for great variation amongst individual fellows in GH training needs and demands.
HEESW is keen to provide opportunity for GH fellows to incorporate service development and sustainable health systems strengthening throughout the four year programme in addition to service delivery aspects of this fellowship. For those who would like to pursue a career in GH, there are several additional avenues of further GH education, experience and research including:
- Global Health Masters and Short Course - In October every year there is a one week module that can be taken as a stand alone Global Health course (30 CPD) or as part of a Masters in Remote and Global Medicine at Plymouth University (this is self funded).
- Opportunity for Fellow's to take a further three months of their OOPE to obtain the Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene at Liverpool (self funded)
- Clinical aspects of International health / tropical medicine can also be covered in the Cheltenham crash course (self funded).
Global Health Experience
Further GH experience is available through the existing three South West led Tropical Health Education Trust (THET) international partnerships with Ethiopia, Kenya and Sierra Leone, many of which have or are building substantial community and primary care aspects into their work and involve SW GP trainers. We are creating links across Local Education Training Boards (LETB'S) such as with the NESC leadership scheme. These links have opportunity for seven day projects which can be undertaken in annual leave. Other options are with charities such as www.twoweeks.org.uk or through volunteering to support e-learning initiatives.
There are many ‘locally global’ opportunities in HEESW including GP placements in deprived BME communities and ‘The Haven’.
Global Health Research
All the HEESW THET health links partnerships have a research aspect to them that offer opportunity both in the UK and overseas. We are in the process of building links with different research projects in South Africa on primary care and community health in line with the goal of Universal Health Coverage. Your AHP mentors can also advise you on improvement, leadership and capacity development projects that you can initiate yourself within the hospitals that you are working in. Evaluation is built in throughout the GH fellows scheme.