Date: 12th April 2021
Subject: Rural Health and Social care
Chair: Graham Biggs MBE, Chief Executive, Rural Services Network
Hosted: Online Event via Zoom

- To download the agenda and papers associated for this meeting, click here

- To download the Attendance and Apologies for this meeting click here

- To download a copy of the presentation used during the event click here

- To download a copy of these learning outcomes click here

Learning Outcomes

Examples of Good Practice

• National Centre for Rural Health and Care
• Rural Proofing for Health Toolkit
• Better Ageing Through Digital Inclusion

Key Learning Points

• Rural residents pay more and receive less due to an unfair distribution of government funds. The Revitalising Rural Campaign sets to right this lack of parity by asking government for a fairer distribution of national resources to rural areas and for more nuanced national policies that reflect rural circumstances.
• Key health and care issues in rural areas are:
• Services are becoming more centralised and difficult to access
• Increasing older population in rural areas
• Difficultly in recruiting and retaining health workers
• Increasing reliance on telecare services
• The Revitalising Rural Campaign has a set of specific policy asks related to the Rural Health and Care issues detailed above, click here to view.
• The importance or working together to raise the temperature on rural health and care issues by ensuring rural representation on NHS Boards is key.
• More prominence needs to be given to Public Health and Mental Health Support in rural areas where isolation and loneliness impacts on all age groups.

Any other key points discussed

No one area of health and care is more important than another.  The provision of good health and care provision in rural areas is dependent on many factors including availability of affordable homes, employment opportunities, education, transport and digital connectivity.  To tackle rural health and care issues we must embrace partnerships and look at the whole