Office of Health Economics, Southside 7th floor, 105 Victoria Street, London, SW1E 6QT, UK.
Health Education England, University of Leeds, Willow Terrace Road, LS2 9JT, Leeds, England.
Global Health. 2019 Apr 23;15(1):31. doi: 10.1186/s12992-019-0473-y.
Global Engagement works with health partnerships to establish workforce and educational translation on a global scale to support the National Health Service (NHS). There is growing evidence on how international experiences (through volunteering, exchanges and placements) benefit the NHS through an innovative workforce that develops international best practice and promotes lifelong learning. Most of this evidence has been captured though surveys to returned international volunteers. However, there is limited evidence about how to quantify the value that returned international healthcare volunteers bring back to their country of residence.
This paper identifies the various benefits to the NHS from returned international healthcare volunteers. The outcomes from returned international volunteers, which have been identified as relevant form a NHS perspective, are linked to three key areas in a multisector analytical framework used by the World Bank to evaluate labour market programmes: (1) Investment climate and Infrastructure, (2) Labor market regulations and institutions, and (3) Education and skills development. The monetary value of these outcomes is quantified through productivity indices which capture the economic value that the achievement of these outcomes have on the quality of the NHS labor force. This model is applied to a dataset of international volunteers provided by the Global Engagement health partnerships.
The results suggest that international volunteering generates average productivity gains of up to 37% for doctors and up to 62% for nurses. Average productivity gains estimated from health partnerships data vary depending on duration of volunteering periods and occupational category mix.
Our analysis offers a value for money rationale for international volunteering programmes purely from a domestic and NHS perspective. The valuation method considers only one of the aims of international volunteering programmes: the development of the existing and future NHS workforce. Broader benefits for health system strengthening at a global level are acknowledged but not accounted for. Overall, we conclude that if the acquisition of volunteering outcomes is realised, the NHS can accrue a productivity increase of between 24 and 41% per volunteer, with a value ranging from £13,215 to £25,934 per volunteer.
全球参与组织与医疗合作伙伴合作，在全球范围内建立劳动力和教育翻译，以支持国民保健服务（NHS）。越来越多的证据表明，通过国际经验（通过志愿服务、交流和实习）如何通过创新的劳动力为 NHS 带来利益，这种劳动力发展国际最佳实践并促进终身学习。这些证据中的大部分都是通过对返回的国际志愿者的调查来获取的。然而，关于如何量化返回的国际医疗保健志愿者为其居住国带来的价值，证据有限。
本文确定了返回的国际医疗保健志愿者为 NHS 带来的各种好处。从 NHS 角度出发，与世界银行用于评估劳动力市场计划的多部门分析框架中的三个关键领域相关的返回国际志愿者的结果：（1）投资环境和基础设施，（2）劳动力市场法规和机构，以及（3）教育和技能发展。通过生产力指数来量化这些结果的货币价值，这些生产力指数捕捉到实现这些结果对 NHS 劳动力质量的经济价值。该模型应用于全球参与健康伙伴关系提供的国际志愿者数据集。
结果表明，国际志愿服务为医生带来的平均生产力提高高达 37%，为护士带来的平均生产力提高高达 62%。根据志愿服务期限和职业类别组合的不同，从健康伙伴关系数据中估计的平均生产力提高幅度也有所不同。
从国内和 NHS 的角度纯粹来看，我们的分析为国际志愿服务计划提供了物有所值的理由。该估值方法仅考虑了国际志愿服务计划的一个目标：现有和未来 NHS 劳动力的发展。更广泛的全球卫生系统加强的好处得到了承认，但没有计入在内。总的来说，我们的结论是，如果实现了志愿服务成果的获取，NHS 可以获得 24%至 41%的志愿者生产力提高，每个志愿者的价值在 13215 英镑至 25934 英镑之间。
