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
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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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: | 10.1186/s12992-015-0134-8 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:93079 |