Irish Support for Healthcare Recruitment in the ‘Emerald Isle of the Caribbean’
NI-CO is delighted to have signed a recent contract with the Government of Montserrat. Working with the Human Resource Management Unit in the Office of the Deputy Governor, the 2 year project will see NI-CO organise and deliver wide scale recruitment campaigns for positions arising in the health and social care sectors on the island. Projects Manager, Jean Caldwell, explains, ‘ Over the last decade, NI-CO has built up an impressive healthcare database comprising both clinicians and healthcare management specialists. Access to this resource gives Montserrat the ability to extend their global reach during recruitment and ensure that they secure the best candidate for the job in the optimum timeframe. NI-CO is thrilled to be Montserrat’s chosen supplier and we very much look forward to working with the HR unit to fulfil all their healthcare personnel needs in the coming years.’
NI-CO welcomes the new year with the addition of 2 new contracts to our existing DG Reform portfolio which will allow opportunities for NI public practitioners to share best practice with their counterparts in Europe. The first project will see a former Divisional Director within the Northern Ireland Central Procurement Directorate heading to Greece to lead a 26 month project designed to support the transition of Greece’s national central health procurement agency (EKAPY) into an efficient, flexible and focused private sector entity, centrally managing and optimizing public healthcare sourcing, procurement, supply chain and logistics, while supporting the reach of its health procurement targets. As well as offering internationally recognised procurement training courses for EKAPY staff, the project will introduce standardised operating procedures and an integrated Pan-Health Service coding system as well as developing, testing and implementing new digital solutions for the end to end management of supply chains. NI-CO Chief Executive, Graeme McCammon, commented ‘ NI-CO have had the pleasure of working with EKAPY since June 2018 and while excellent progress has been made in many areas, staffing changes coupled with the current pandemic have presented operational challenges for the Agency. Now with the new EKAPY management team in place we are confident that together we will be able to make the necessary changes to ensure that EKAPY becomes the Centre of Expertise in Health Procurement for Greece.’
the development of new methodologies for needs assessment and quality control in the area of social services. Led by a former Executive Director for Social Services of the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, the project will deliver support and capacity building activities under three parallel but linked work streams which will be piloted in the area of foster care. The first component is horizontal and will focus on project governance, and on monitoring and evaluation of the reform process. Component two will focus on social services assessment of need and planning for service delivery and a third component will focus on reviewing the methodology for developing standards across all programmes of care. Although primarily working with the Ministry of Labour, Pensions System, Family and Social Policy in Zagreb, the project will encourage engagement with local stakeholders (Service providers, SWCs and service users) across Croatia to gather views and opinions on how new social services should be developed to better meet the local needs that they encounter during their daily lives. Among the project deliverables, will also be the requirement to share best practice on pandemic planning across all programmes of care in both hospitals and the community achieved during the management of the recent COVID 19 pandemic so that these can be integrated into emergency plans for future pandemics.
NI-CO is currently implementing phase one of a two phase project that will develop a strategic road map for addressing the key issues as identified in the Croatian National Health Care Strategy 2012-2020. Working with the Ministry of Health in Zagreb, the NI-CO team comprising expertise resourced primarily from within the Department of Health in Northern Ireland will assist with identifying the necessary building blocks to address a number of concerns namely :
In late June, NI-CO was delighted to welcome 6 senior delegates from Algeria who were visiting Belfast as part of a UK study mission designed to explore best practice in consumer protection. The visit was organised by NI-CO as part of our EU financed Institutional Twinning project which we have been delivering in Algiers since 2017. During their trip, senior managers from the Algerian Ministry of Commerce were kindly hosted by practitioners from Trading Standards within the Department for Economy, the Consumer Council, Food Standards Agency, Port Health, Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs and Consumer Safety NI who shared real life cases of current consumer complaints, stakeholder management issues and threats to consumer safety. During the meetings the group were encouraged to reflect upon current practices within Algeria and to discuss how the various models employed by Northern Ireland might be adapted to meet the evolving needs of the consumer protection sector in Algeria.