Trainee doctors are being enticed to a rural area of Scotland with brand new homes.
NHS Ayrshire and Arran said it hoped to develop a higher quality workforce by becoming the "health board of choice" for more graduates.
The board provides clinical placements for students from the universities of Glasgow and Dundee in their final year but said efforts to attractmore undergraduates with the aim of retaining them to fill posts are being hampered by limited accommodation.
It planned to create homes for 24 students but has been forced to drastically scale back its plans after costs for the project soared within the space of a few months.
In February 2021, it approved a £450k plan to re-develop existing offices on Lister Street at the University Hospital Crosshouse.
Four months later the project costs had increased to more than £1million £1,020k due to "significant inflation" in the construction market and a new legal requirement to include a sprinkler system in multiple occupancy homes.
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It was then agreed in June that rooms for 12 students could be delivered for £625k but tender returns were significantly higher than predicted with costs rising to £866k.
The board abandoned the plan and has now purchased three four-bedded houses in Kilmarnock town centre from Barrat Homes at a cost of £857,000 helped by the Scottish Government and teaching grants.
The British Medical Association welcomed the investment but said funding for student accommodation required a re-think to ensure boards in all areas attract candidates.
The British Medical Association said the case exposed "another area of NHS funding" that needs looked at if boards are to attract more graduate doctors to rural areas.
Medical students do not pay for accommodation while on clinical placements but the standard is said to vary widely across heath boards.
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In 2001, BMA Scotland negotiated an agreement with the then Scottish Executive on the minimum standards that should apply to hospital accommodation for doctors in training.
However, in 2019 the BMA said there been several notable reports of accommodation at Scottish hospitals failing to provide " startlingly basic amenities" as running water, sound-proofing or security.
Lewis O’Connor, chair of BMA Scotland’s medical students committee, said: “While it is positive that NHS Ayrshire and Arran have committed to providing good quality, sustainable accommodation for medical students, it is unfortunate that they have had to downscale the number of rooms available so significantly due to funding.
"This is yet another area of NHS funding that needs to be considered, to ensure our medical students on placement are provided with the best experience possible, and potentially encouraging graduates to consider applying for posts in some of our more rural health boards.
"We would welcome other rural health boards doing similar if funding allows to attract and retain medical graduates.”
Nicola Graham, Director of Infrastructure and Support Services for NHS Ayrshire and Arran said: "At its Board meetings in January and March, NHS Ayrshire & Arran approved the purchase of three adjacent, new-build properties in Kilmarnock, which will be used to accommodate medical students who are on placement at University Hospital Crosshouse (UHC).
"The purchase of these properties supports our long term strategy to develop a pipeline of future graduates choosing to work for NHS Ayrshire & Arran and is in line with the property strategy to vacate older Lister Street premises (currently a mix of offices and existing student accommodation at UHC)."
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said: "“Supporting remote and rural healthcare is a priority for the Scottish Government.
“That is why we are funding ScotGEM – Scotland’s first graduate entry medicine programme which has a focus on remote and rural healthcare. ScotGEM students are offered a “return of service bursary”.
"For each bursary of £4,000 students are obliged to work for a year in NHS Scotland.
"The GPST targeted retention scheme offers one-off grants of £20,000 to GP trainees who commit to work in areas that have previously proven difficult to recruit to including remote and rural areas.
"The Scottish Government will develop a Remote and Rural workforce recruitment strategy by the end of 2024. This will support employers to ensure that the Health and Social Care needs of people who live in remote and rural communities are met."
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