Enhancing Attraction to Undergraduate Medicine
Enhancing Attraction to Undergraduate Medicine
NHSScotland continues to face challenges in attracting and recruiting staff. These challenges include national shortages of specialist medical roles, especially felt in more rural health boards. A more strategic approach is required to build a sustainable pipeline of medical applicants to support the ambition across NHS Scotland to recruit and retain a resilient diverse workforce suited to population need.
The NES Medical Directorate (through Additional Cost of Teaching) has funded three Senior Specialist Leads to work on attraction to undergraduate Medicine from July 2024 through to March 2027. The posts are being managed within the Innovation and Workforce Diversification team in the Academy, Learning & Innovation Directorate.
Each Lead has a regional networking portfolio including Boards, Scottish Medical Schools, and other partners:
- Joanne Haddrick – East and Central
- Lori Pattinson – North
- Lauren Brown - West
Working with key stakeholders, the team’s purpose is to drive improvements and innovations within the medical attraction space, considering a whole-system approach which attracts more Scottish applicants aligned to the objectives of NES Medical Directorate’s Medical Education Reform programme.
In taking forward this work, the ‘Enhancing Medical Attraction (EMA) Team’ will also maintain alignment with change currently developing in the system, for example greater use of contextualised admissions. Our work will also support the wider Youth Academy aims of raising awareness of healthcare careers more broadly, developing learning and insights that could be replicated to support attraction to other career pathways.
We will be led by data and research to understand what works, both in the Scottish context and learning from UK/international examples. The team will aim to identify potential system changes that can help Medicine remain a viable and attractive option for as broad a range of individuals as possible.
Background
The Scottish Government (SG) introduced the Scottish Domiciled (ScotDom) Policy in 2019/20, to increase the number of Scot Dom students studying medicine. Due to the impacts of the pandemic implementation was suspended and alternative phased increases where proposed.
Whilst Ministers remain committed to increasing the numbers of Scottish-domiciled students studying Medicine, the focus on delivering this outcome has shifted to increasing the numbers of students recruited from Widening Access routes (i.e. students from areas scoring highly on the Scottish index of multiple deprivation) and other interventions targeted at Scottish-domiciled students, rather than setting a minimum target.
Representatives from all Scottish Medical Schools, NES and the Medical Schools Council (MSC) established a ‘Scots Dom’ short life working group in May 2024 to focus on encouraging more Scottish Medical applicants in Scotland. We are continuing to connect with partners in this group as the EMA project develops'
Defining the Workstreams
Since starting work in August, we have focussed on developing a workplan and agreeing this with internal colleagues and partners on the Scots Dom Short Life Working Group.
The work will look both at short-term changes (how to maximise current resources and supporting incremental change) and longer-term systemic changes (co-designing more ambitious solutions with key partners across the student-trainee career journey).
Focusing solely on short term changes would miss the opportunity to affect change for the long term by building a more responsive, adaptable attraction system. Focusing only on long term innovation would not develop improvements required to adapt the current attraction activities.
Our plan is based around five work areas, all of which are interdependent, and which underpin the overarching ambition to support recruitment and retention of a resilient and diverse medical workforce:
1 | Information |
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We will work to provide a range of information resources that support the delivery of effective career learning and enable potential applicants to develop a better understanding of the role of doctors, career pathways and educational opportunities. This workstream includes identifying how best to inform and support educators, careers advisers and parents as key influencers of career decisions. |
2 | Opportunity |
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Building on the existing career learning activities designed to inspire and support potential applicants - such as work experience or career insight events – we will identify gaps and make recommendations which improve equity, consistency and maximise opportunities to recruit. Integral to NHS Scotland’s role as an anchor institution is the aspiration to widen access, therefore this pillar of work has an emphasis on reaching and supporting the needs of groups that are currently under-represented in our medical workforce. |
3 | Attraction |
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COVID put healthcare in the spotlight, helping trigger an all-time high in application numbers. The number of applicants is now reducing back to pre-pandemic level, and, in the technological and digital era, the same high-ability students are being actively targeted by corporate competitors who are offering new career options. We will identify what more could be done to reflect the modern medical workplace in outreach, e.g. celebrating medical role models and emphasising those aspects of Medicine as a career that align with what we know about young people’s motivations. Our attraction activity will also include actively seeking to engage with career changers, including those who may have previously considered a career as a doctor. |
4 | Evaluation |
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It is important to continuously appraise and adapt attraction activities to ensure they remain effective. We will evaluate our work as we go, sharing learning and building an evidence-base to consolidate current activities. We will identify successful interventions within healthcare across Scotland, the UK and internationally, and consider learning from attraction approaches utilised by other industry sectors. Developing theories of change to test and learn new approaches will include agreeing evaluation metrics during project co-design. |
5 | Data |
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We will be led by data, e.g. by examining historical data to identify patterns and trends in an applicant journey set focus across workstreams. Monitoring of workstream activities will support us to remain responsive and adaptive with measures that will demonstrate value. |
With our initial workplan in place, we will now develop these workstreams further through research, user insights and testing.
Project Management
Outcomes and progress will be reported on via the Directorate’s standard reporting procedures. As the three posts are funded via NES Medical ACT budget, outcomes and updates are also reported on regularly to the Medical ACT Governance Group.
Progress so far
- Workplan developed and agreed with internal and external partners.
- Working with the five teaching universities and the Medical Schools Council, we are developing an ‘Application Hub’. This web resource, to be housed on nhscareers.scot, will bring together in one place summary information on entry requirements, advice and links to further information. This is being developed in response to feedback from some secondary schools and carers advisers that they were unsure where to direct individuals interested in in applying to Medicine. We will launch an initial version early in 2025, which will develop and grow over time in response to emerging need.
- University Medical Schools, student societies, Boards and other partners currently provide a wide range of outreach activities - such as career insight sessions, work experience, or mock interviews - which inspire, inform and prepare individuals for a career in medicine. We are mapping current outreach activity to help identify gaps in provision by activity type, target audience or geography. This analysis will allow us to identify recommendations for additional programmes and targeted interventions to enhance existing delivery and support our ambition to facilitate equity of opportunity.
Call to action
We are very keen to hear from anyone with an interest in attracting a wider profile of Scottish applicants into Medical School as a first step into this fantastic career. If you have any questions, advice, ideas, or experience to share - the EMA Team would love to hear from you! You can email any member of the team via the directory or contact us all using nes.learningandinnovation@nhs.scot - adding Medical Attraction as the email subject.
Thanks, and we look forward to continuing to keep in touch as this work progresses
Dylan White: Principal Lead, Youth Academy
Lauren Brown: Senior Specialist Lead, West region
Jo Haddrick: Senior Specialist Lead, East/Central region
Lori Pattinson: Senior Specialist Lead, West region
Enhancing Attraction to Undergraduate Medicine