Background In recent years, our local mental health organisation, now in conjunction with the DoH and NHSE and our system partners managed to negotiate the first trial of a major careers festival, India November 2022, after signing a government ethical agreement between both countries, July 2022. Our ICB have since been working with Kerala in support of aiding our clinical vacancies. Our Board agreed to participate in this initial one year’s project, scoping the possibilities of what international recruitment had to offer.

Aims/purpose By taking part in this ground-breaking venture we aimed to:

• Aid the recruitment of clinical staff.

• Understand the palliative care sector in Kerala.

Method Two staff from our organisation went out to Kerala for 8 days – November 2022. The hospice was one of 10 organisations that took part in a 5-day Careers Festival. 794 interviews collectively took place. 568 candidates collectively were offered positions. We personally interviewed 200 candidates. We met with various Palliative care teams – 3 doctors, Care Centre, Government Hospital, Community Outreach, Community Physiotherapy Centre and Hospice.

Results Three registered nurses and a social worker all with palliative care experience were offered positions. We continued to build strong relationships with Palliative Care Team in Kerala.

Returning in May 2023, spending 10 days, attending another Careers Festival and enhanced our relationship with the palliative care doctors – identifying a collaborative approach to training.

Conclusion From our first visit we quickly realised that Kerala had a robust palliative care system, and that future recruitment possibilities existed. We have established an international joint training programme, looking at how we can support and develop and extension of their current training programmes. Our initial scoping works could prove beneficial to other hospices in the UK, in sharing our experiences and knowledge gained from this project.