Over 300 delegates from Norway, Australia, Russia, Canada, USA and Scotland gathered for the first International Conference in Scotland focussing on remote and rural health, which was a joint venture between NHS Scotland and the Northern Norway Regional Health Authority (Helse Nord), based on close links which have been forged over the past few years through sharing similar healthcare challenges.

The conference saw a convergence of international expertise and allowed an important ppportunity to share common experiences. Conference delegates made it clear that they see a continuing need for a permanent voice for rural health issues with international dimensions.

Speakers and program
Delegates heard keynote speakers including:
Dr Richard Holloway, writer and broadcaster, Dr Mads Gilbert, Professor of Emergency Medicine at University of TromsØ, and Dr Roger Strasser, Chair of WONCA Party on Rural Practice, and currently Professor of Rural Health and Founding Dean of Northern Ontario Medical School.

The programme included a selection of parallel sessions and 20 workshops looking at issues such as, Professional Roles, Recruitment and retention, Tele-medicine, Planning for the Future, Risk management, Nursing and Maternity care and Rural Needs and Managed Clinical Networks. Delegates were encouraged to contribute to a "Knowledge Bank" sponsored by Robert Gordon’s University, which was set up to capture the learning and ideas from the conference. Members of the public from communities around rural Scotland were funded to attend the conference to add a valuable perspective to the debate.

View the conference report:

Conference Report 2001

Outcomes
We are currently gathering evidence of shared working and change of practice which has come about as a result of the 2003 Making it Work Conference. For example, NHS Shetland have since visited Norway to explore Out of Hours GP arrangements.

Results of a survey amongst 2003 delegates:

  • 86% agreed that remote and rural way of working is sufficiently different from urban working to need a special approach to education
  • 92% agreed that working in multi-professional networks is of major importance in remote and rural areas
  • 25% thought that criteria for measuring healthcare are the same in all health care sectors (53% thought they were not the same and 22% didn’t know)
  • 21% agreed that health policy in their country is helpful to working in a remote and rural area (64% disagreed, 15% don’t know)
  • 56% said that better support networks would be the most important factor to continue working in a remote and rural area (7% wanted better pay, 12% wanted better education and training, 12% wanted better systems of measuring quality)
91% agreed that working in remote and rural areas requires extra skills