The West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership Global Fellowship offers staff the opportunity to spend six months living abroad to complete a global health project.
The Fellowship is hosted by the NHS Global Fellowship team. The NHS Global Fellowship has been on offer for nearly 15 years, and in that time, more than 350 NHS staff have undertaken fellowships abroad, many who have returned to the UK have drawn on their global health skills to become senior leaders across the NHS.
Global Fellowships offer volunteers reciprocal leadership development opportunities for clinical and non-clinical staff to experience health systems across the globe. Fellows focus on a quality improvement project, co-developed with local and/or national partners to enhance experiences of care, improve health outcomes and reduce health inequalities. Returning Fellows demonstrate new skills, and improved motivation and resilience, contributing to career progression and retention.
Our partnerships with the Government of Kerala (India) and St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) in the Caribbean have allowed us to offer two Global Fellowship programmes that are available exclusively for staff working within West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership organisations.
The West Yorkshire-Kerala Fellowship started in September 2024 and the SVG Fellowship has been active for several years involving Fellows from Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust (LTHT). The Kerala and SVG Fellowships are open to applicants from staff in all organisations within the Partnership. NHS staff can also apply to a range of other Fellowship opportunities offered by NHS England.
The West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership Global Fellowship is your opportunity to spend time overseas working on quality improvement benefits. This includes leadership skills, professional practice, personal development and resilience and communication skills.
Paul Jackson, a current West Yorkshire Fellow from Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, said: "My verbal communication skills have improved in response to the challenges of communicating in English in Kerala. I have learned to listen carefully, speak slowly and concisely, and to double-check that I have been understood.
"My resilience has been challenged on several occasations during the Fellowship. I have become more proactive in taking control of a situation and not always relying on others to resolve problems."
You can read the Global Health Learning Outcomes Framework to find out more about how taking part in a Global Fellowship can help you to learn, grow, and bring valuable skills back home with you.
We strongly encourage applications from across the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership, including staff who have familial/cultural heritage in the countries we partner with, particularly those who undertook their professional education in one of our partner countries.
Please read these Frequently Asked Questions and find out more on NHS England Global Fellowships.
Recruitment for the August 2025 cohort of NHS Global Fellowships is now open. Applicants must complete the application form by 11.59pm on Sunday 9 February 2025 and send a CV to england.global.fellowships@nhs.net. Shortlisted candidates will be invited to a virtual 35 minute interview between Monday 3 March and Friday 7 March 2025.
If you are interested in Global Fellowships and opportunities but are not applying for a Fellowship this time, you can join our West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership Global Citizens Community. The Global Citizens Community is a network of people from across the Partnership who are involved or interested in global health. We produce a quarterly newsletter and share opportunities to get involved in global work with our members.
We will be holding two NHS Global Fellowship recruitment events where we will provide information on our Fellowships and there will be an opportunity to ask questions.
If you have questions, please email the Global Fellowships team at england.global.fellowships@nhs.net and with specific questions about the Kerala and St Vincent and the Grenadines Fellowships, please email wyicb-wak.wyglobal@nhs.net.
In the video below, Dr Mia Thomas, speciality trainee doctor at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, and Dr Tina Grant, foundation year 2 doctor at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Gateshead, who spent six months in George, South Africa in 2023 asking them some questions about their time in South Africa, their projects and their reflections on the fellowship.
