New Indo-UK healthcare partnerships were announced following the India launch of Healthcare UK. The new partnerships in diabetes, clinical psychology and public health will involve Indian and UK healthcare individuals and institutions working together in a wide range of areas including faculty and student exchange, research, training and health delivery innovations. Some of the partnerships are mentioned below.
Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research (JIPMER), Pondicherry, have signed a partnership agreement in Education, Training & Research in Healthcare with Healthcare UK. The scope of this collaboration includes Development of the JIPMER School of Public Health (JISPH) organisation of co-operative seminars, workshops and other academic meetings, strategic partnership between JIPMER and a leading UK institution(s), to include exchange of knowledge, expertise, students and faculty; mentoring and monitoring, capacity building through sharing of curriculum from UK universities and NHS centres of excellence, including distance education, health services research, including joint funding opportunities and commercial ventures and health delivery innovations, including business partnerships. JIPMER has earmarked Rs150 crores (approximately £15 million) to develop JISPH in the 12th plan budget.
In addition to this school, JIPMER being a vertically and horizontally integrated health system, has several strategic directions to pursue collaborations with UK spanning primary care to tertiary care, innovations in education, training and research of all types towards accomplishing the missions of excellence in education, pre-eminence in research, patient-centred care and improving public health needs of the society. The 12th plan budget will be leveraged to further the pursuit of joint mission of this agreement.
Centre for Applied Research and Education, Institute of Behavioural Sciences (CARE-IBS ), Chennai has several new and expanding partnerships with the UK and will host several events in September 2013 with UK expertise:
Between September 23-28, 2013, CARE is organising a Level-2 Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) Training programme in Chennai and a one-day workshop on CBT for the Management of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) which will be run by a clinical psychology expert from South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust as well as a: programme for corporates on workplace stress and emotional health of employees run by an expert from the University of Manchester and the Salford Cognitive Therapy Training Centre in the UK. The institute will also organise the first international conference on CBT, again with clinical psychology experts from the UK.
In December 2013, CARE also plans to host the first-of-its-kind training programme on Parenting run by a clinical psychology expert from Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. CARE have already been offering a first of its kind 3-year Post Graduate programme in India in clinical psychology approved by the British Psychological Society (BPS) run by the University of Leicester’s School of Psychology.
Jothydev’s Diabetes & Research Centre in Kerala on the other hand has partnered with Birmingham City University (BCU), Faculty of Health, UK, for the provision of a 3-module PG certificate in Diabetes Mellitus Diagnosis and Management. Very few Indian faculty train nurses, diabetes educators and primary care physicians in the management of diabetes. Jothydev’s partnership with BCU is a step in addressing this gap. Jothydev’s expects the first PG course to be delivered by BCU staff to participants in Kerala in 2014 with staff from Jothydev’s gaining teaching qualifications to enable Jothydev’s to offer the approved programme with quality monitoring by BCU. The proposed certificate award is designed for local, national and international markets and will be delivered jointly between the Faculty of Health, BCU and the Diabetes Centre at the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation.
EH News Bureau