Thanks to research funding provided by the Research England Strategic Priorities Fund, local Community Interest Company, The Lincolnshire Refugee Doctors Project is collaborating with researchers from the Lincolnshire Open Research and Innovation Centre (LORIC) at Bishop Grosseteste University to evaluate the success and impact of their first year in operation.
With a growing need for clinicians in the UK, the Lincolnshire Refugee Doctors Project was set up with the mission to “provide humanitarian support to medically qualified refugees and their families. For them to resettle and be able to continue their medical careers within the local NHS, and to make a contribution to the workforce needs of the local NHS".
In order to do this, the programme supports members with accommodation, mentoring, accessing English language and clinical knowledge exams, as well as access to work placements in the NHS and support to gain GMC registration and to gain employment in the NHS.
The programme started in the Grimsby area, linked with Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust and expanded into Lincoln supported by United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust in 2020.
This research project will look to evaluate the impact that the project has had in its first year, not only on its participating doctors, but on local NHS services, and will be completed by April 2021.
More details of the support available to refugee doctors can be found in a film made by Syria Public Health Network which features Ba’raa, a 29 year old doctor who fled Homs in 2019.