History, culture, nature, people make Shetland a truly wonderful place to develop your career.
It’s a place where you can have a quality of life second to none, mixing peace and tranquillity with a vibrant and thriving cultural scene.
If you visit Shetland, chances are you’ll want to come back – so why not just stay.
Inhabited by around 23,000 people and an abundance of wildlife, Shetland is a land of many contrasts – rugged hills and flower-strewn meadows; large new houses and traditional crofts; ultramodern ships and small boats which can trace their ancestry back to Viking times. Islands which are distinctly Norse in character yet part of Scotland. Islands with a fascinating heritage and a timeless quality.
Seafaring is in our blood so we’ve been connected to the world throughout our history. Digital technology is making those connections even stronger – we’ve got high speed connections to the internet via the Faroe Islands that mean you’ll get as good rates of connection from a home in Lerwick as you would in central Edinburgh. Fast, frequent ferries connect our islands and there are good links by air and ferry to the rest of Scotland.
Shetland is a place which is small enough to make you feel welcome, yet large enough to find peace and that unmistakable feeling of space to breathe; a place of friendly, hospitable people; a place embracing both modern technology and traditional industries with a unique culture reflected in music and literature; a place where you can enjoy the long, light nights of “simmer dim”; where you can walk, fish, ride, swim… or just relax; a place which offers choice.
Health Services in Shetland
Health Services in Shetland are provided through NHS Shetland, an organisation with around 550 staff looking after the health needs of some 23,000 people. However, what we lack in size, we more than make up for by way of the tight-knit, highly professional ethos that characterises every aspect of our operations throughout the islands.
Local Hospital and Community Services are provided from the Gilbert Bain Hospital in Lerwick. The hospital has up to 75 beds and includes a maternity service and Day Surgery. In addition, visiting consultants from NHS Grampian provide out-patient clinics as well as in-patient and day-case surgery to supplement the service provided by our locally-based Consultants in General Medicine, General Surgery, Anaesthetics and Psychiatry.
Shetland has 10 GP surgeries across the isles, and although certain areas are remote, almost everyone has a GP within a reasonable distance.
The Lerwick Health Centre is the largest surgery, serving the town’s residents. In addition to GPs, the Lerwick Health Centre utilises an innovative system of Advanced Nursing Practitioners – senior nurses who can deal with minor or straight-forward medical issues on the day, freeing up GPs’ time for more complex cases.
The South Mainland is served by the Levenwick Medical Practice, while over on the Westside there are surgeries in Scalloway, Walls and Bixter. The north of Shetland is provided for by the surgeries in Brae and Hillswick, while residents of Yell, Unst and Whalsay have surgeries on their own islands.
Smaller islands, such as Fetlar and Fair Isle, do not have their own surgeries, but do have nursing provision and residents can be registered at the closest GP surgery.
There are challenges, of course; but the rewards of living and working in a place like Shetland more than make up for the occasional rainy day. Why not come up and find out more? We can arrange practice visits and there are locum opportunities that can give you a taste of what we offer.