Hague, B., Sills, J. and Thompson, A.R. (2015) An evaluation of the benefits to a UK Health Care Trust working in a partnership with a hospital in Northern Uganda: International partnership working in mental health. Globalization and Health, 11. 52. ISSN 1744-8603
Abstract
Background: Despite the worthy intentions of international health partnerships between high-income countries and countries with developing economies, the tangible benefits are rarely evaluated, limiting the assessment of the achievements of such collaborations.
Methods: The present study used longitudinal qualitative methods to examine the individual and organisational benefits of a partnership between a National Health Service (NHS) mental health Trust in the United Kingdom and a mental health referral hospital in Northern Uganda. Benefits to UK staff and organisational development were benchmarked against an existing framework of healthcare competencies.
Results: Partnership involvement was beneficial to UK staff, by increasing awareness of diversity, and in enhancing ability to work flexibly and as a team. There were clear benefits expressed with regards to the partnership having the potential to enhance organisational reputation and staff morale.
Conclusions: The findings from this study demonstrate that international partnerships are experienced as being of tangible value for healthcare staff from high-income countries, providing opportunities for the development of recognised healthcare competencies. In this study there was also some evidence that staff involvement might also provide wider organisational benefits.
Metadata
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2015 Hague et al. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
Keywords: | International health partnerships; Mental health; Qualitative methods; Thematic analysis; Africa |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 18 Jan 2016 10:57 |
Last Modified: | 18 Jan 2016 10:57 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12992-015-0134-8 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | BioMed Central |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-015-0134-8 |