NHS Scotland is advertising a rare opportunity to live and work on the remote Orkney island of Hoy. The position, based with NHS Orkney, offers a salary between £43,231 and £52,679 for 36 hours per week, plus rented accommodation arranged through a private landlord.
Job details and benefits
The successful applicant will receive a Distant Islands Allowance of £1,719 pro rata per year and access to an NHS pension scheme, work-life balance policies, an employee assistance programme, and discounts at local and national retailers. Hoy is the second-largest island in Orkney, known for its dramatic landscapes and landmarks such as the Old Man of Hoy sea stack.
The fixed-term, full-time island nurse will work as part of a small team delivering healthcare to Hoy's approximate population of 400. While on duty, the nurse will be the sole provider of comprehensive nursing services to the entire island population.
Responsibilities and duties
Duties include assessment and implementation of care for individuals and families, participating in the out-of-hours on-call rota to provide pre-hospital emergency care alongside the on-call GP, and ensuring safe and effective care delivery. The nurse will work in various settings—the island surgery, patients' homes, and accident scenes such as road traffic incidents—and will manage chronic disease care, palliatives care, and vaccination programmes.
Applicants must be adaptable and able to function without immediate hospital resources. They should be comfortable with assessment, planning, and monitoring of quality healthcare across the lifespan in a community setting.
Candidate requirements
Ideal candidates are experienced, forward-thinking, highly motivated nurses with up-to-date clinical knowledge and skills. A full UK driving licence is required. Desirable attributes include experience in remote and rural areas, strong interpersonal and communication skills, evidence of multidisciplinary teamwork, excellent organisation and leadership, and the ability to prioritise work.
NHS Scotland states: "Are you ready to develop new generalist skills and build on your experience? Could your nursing skills and experience help us to achieve our vision of becoming a centre of excellence in remote and rural healthcare? NHS Orkney aspires to being a centre of excellence in remote and rural healthcare and we are keen to recruit an Island Nurse who shares this vision to support our team on Hoy."
It adds: "Hoy, with a population of approximately 388, is a branch of the Orcades Practice (approximately 1,953 patients) which consists of six single-handed island practices with GPs and nurses providing 24/7 healthcare to the smaller islands of Orkney. Weekly Teams meetings enable clinicians to share knowledge and experience to overcome professional isolation and provide strong peer support."
