Global Health Volunteer Experience Programme for GP Specialty2 Trainees in Wales
Published 8 August 2025
‘It is a mark of an open and engaged country that we in Wales are keen to work with people from other countries in the pursuit of sharing knowledge and improving health’ – Mark Drakeford; introduction to the Charter for International Health Partnerships, 2014.
Health Education and Improvement Wales (HEIW) is working with international partners to deliver a Global Health experience for doctors in training for General Practice in Wales and launched a new Global Health Volunteer programme in 2024. Spring 2025 saw the first Out of Programme deployments, 2 to the Family Medicine Speciality Training Programme in Lesotho in southern Africa and one to Fukushima Medical University in Japan.
The pioneers of the project were Dr. Bethan Cox (Japan), Dr. Jenna Crosbie (Lesotho) and Dr. Rachel Price (Lesotho) who described their experiences as ‘fantastic’ and ‘life changing’. They were all wonderful ambassadors for HEIW and for Wales, paving the way for colleagues to benefit in the years ahead. Dr. Bethan Cox’s placement was funded with a grant from the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, to whom sincere gratitude is expressed.
The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation
In 2026, the project will continue in Lesotho and Japan and will expand to include a placement with the Cantabria Health Service in northern Spain. This has been made possible by a grant from Welsh Government delivered through its unique ‘Taith’ programme of international exchanges. Taith funding will support the project for 2 years from September 2025.
Homepage - Taith - Wales' international exchange programme
The placements involve 2-month unpaid Out of Programme deployments to observe and share learning with partners delivering primary care services in some very different cultural, economic and environmental situations. It also supports primary care doctors in training from partner organisations to come to Wales and experience the services here. In 2024 HEIW welcomed a second year GP trainee from Cantabria in northern Spain and another doctor from the same programme is visiting for 2 months in summer 2025.
As well as gaining knowledge and skills, and further developing core capabilities for General Practice training, the Global Health Volunteers will build confidence, independence and resilience. This is a transformative project delivering skills and experiences which will support the doctors to become well-rounded individuals who can then apply those skills to improve patient outcomes throughout their careers.
In addition to aligning with COPMED, Gold Guide, version 10, August 2024, which highlights the value of overseas experience and training, the project supports key strategic priorities for HEIW including excellence in education and the implementation of Welsh Government policy decisions.
Global Health is about everything that affects the health of us all wherever we live. We are interconnected and interdependent in health globally, just as we are in every other area of our lives.’ - Lord Nigel Crisp, Vice Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Health. This philosophy underpins the HEIW project, guiding the learners, the staff and our international friends and partners. We’re all in this together on a small, highly complex, fragile world and we need to look after each other.
Anything we achieve through this project will be thanks to a national team effort. That’s something to shout about, and we intend to! Wales is certainly outward looking, collaborative and welcoming on the international stage and we will demonstrate our pride in this national philosophy to our international partners.
For more information please see; https://heiw.nhs.wales/education-and-training/general-practice-gp/current-gp-trainees/global-health-experience-ghe/