This month, reflections on what a divided place rural England is in terms of game birds and badgers, how cold and expensive it is going to be moving forward to live in rural England, care home staffing challenges and the final story made me reach for my copy of “Crow” by Ted Hughes…

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Expensive badger cull should be ended, study says

Whilst all eyes focus on Ukraine, the world continues to turn on homespun, but nonetheless important issues. This is one ongoingly divisive rural issues in this context,

A badger cull intended to control bovine tuberculosis (bTB) outbreaks has not worked and should be ended, a study has suggested.

The decade-long plan that started in Gloucestershire and Somerset, has killed 140,000 badgers.

A paper released today by the Veterinary Record journal and scientists who oppose the cull, claims it "cost a fortune and saved nothing".

The government has criticised the study and said it fits a "campaign agenda".

A Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) spokesperson said: "This paper has been produced to fit a clear campaign agenda and manipulates data in a way that makes it impossible to see the actual effects of badger culling on reducing TB rates.

"It is disappointing to see it published in a scientific journal."

Badgers also carry bovine TB and farmers believe they help spread it to cattle.

According to the government, independent and past "published scientifically rigorous analysis of the disease shows that licensed badger culling is helping to drive down bTB in cull areas."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-60791793

Cost of living: Rural communities without access to mains gas face 'a tsunami of poverty', charity warns

The first of two articles about the impact of rising energy costs on rural areas specifically. Less you thought rural areas were ostensibly affluent!

There's a warning that "a tsunami of poverty" will hit rural communities if more help isn't provided to the 14% of British households living without access to mains gas.

Many homes in the countryside which rely on oil, bottled gas, coal and wood to heat and cook are facing rapidly rising bills, made worse due to the volatility caused by the war in Ukraine.

Those alternative fuel sources are not covered by Ofgem's increased price gap coming into force next month and are often far more expensive than mains supply.

SNP MP Drew Hendry has tabled the Energy Pricing (Off Gas Grid Households) Private Members Bill in parliament to try to provide extra help and protection for households which are off-grid.

He told the Commons last month that those households are forced to pay about four times more for their energy bills than the average home.

The problem mainly affects rural parts of the UK, where mains gas pipes do not reach.

In Cornwall, 47% of homes are off the gas grid.

https://news.sky.com/story/cost-of-living-rural-communities-without-access-to-mains-gas-face-a-tsunami-of-poverty-charity-warns-12563867

Heating oil prices more than double in the UK, leaving rural homes with soaring energy bills

..and here is the second argument to ram the point home.

Energy prices are soaring for millions of households across the country as Ofgem’s price cap rises to £1,971 on 1 April.

However, 1.5 million households that are served by heating oil will also find their bills increasing dramatically, according to Energy Helpline.

These homes, which are mostly situated in rural locations, are not covered by the price cap and so they are likely to find themselves affected by rising costs.

Heating oil prices are linked to oil prices more generally, and in recent weeks these have increased rapidly following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions – Russia is the third biggest producer of oil in the world.

Rural homes are also facing long delays receiving deliveries of LPG (liquified petroleum gas) as the ongoing HGV driver shortage has left providers struggling to fulfil orders.

https://inews.co.uk/news/heating-oil-prices-uk-double-rural-homes-energy-bills-soaring-1509967

Somerset care home staff continue working with Covid

Notwithstanding the impact of Community Catalysts and Community Council for Somerset, who have made huge inroads into the supply of care workers in a deep rural setting, the pressure on rural communities to manage adult social care reflects itself in contemporary stories like this. It tells us:

Some care homes have "no choice" but to allow workers who have Covid to deliver care, a public health official said.

According to Public Health England cases are rising the fastest in Somerset.

As a result, care homes in the county are struggling to safely staff their services and schools are seeing a rise in staff sickness.

Somerset Council said ensuring vulnerable residents received care was "lower risk" than them being infected.

Health officials advised care workers to continue working only if they wore PPE and felt well enough.

Council public health consultant Alison Bell said: "In some cases, we have no choice but to have people who are testing positive delivering care to people in Somerset.

"That risk is actually less than that person not receiving care."

She said the Omicron variant was more transmissible and people were getting re-infected with it, some within a matter of weeks.

"The knock-on effect of there being so much Covid is that workers that we really need to deliver essential services are getting sick," Ms Bell added.

She said some schools in the county had had to go to remote learning due to an increase in staff sickness.

"Its really difficult to manage at the moment," she added.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-60771436

Over 80% of UK GPs think patients are at risk in their surgery, survey finds

This is a fascinating and to some extent unexpected story, with a comment from a rural setting putting it into accurate context. It tells us:

More than 80% of GPs believe that patients are being put at risk when they come into their surgery for an appointment, a new survey shows.

A poll of 1,395 GPs found only 13% said their practice was safe for patients all the time. Meanwhile, 85% expressed concerns about patient safety, with 2% saying patients were “rarely” safe, 22% saying they were safe “some of the time” and 61% saying they were safe “most of the time”.

Asked if they thought the risk to patient safety was increasing in their surgery, 70% said it was.

Family doctors identified lack of time with patients, workforce shortages, relentless workloads and heavy administrative burdens as the main reasons people receiving care could be exposed to risk. The survey, which was self-selecting, also found that:

• 91% said more GPs would help improve the state of general practices.

• 84% have had anxiety, stress or depression over the past year linked to their job.

• 31% know a colleague who was physically abused by a patient in the last year.

• 24% know of a member of general practice staff who has taken their own life due to work pressures.

“The evidence shows that, after you’ve already made 25 to 35 decisions about patients’ health on a particular day, that as a GP the risk of making a bad decision goes up,” said Dr Kieran Sharrock, a GP in Lincolnshire and the deputy chair of the British Medical Association’s GP committee.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/mar/21/80-per-cent-gps-patients-at-risk-surgery-survey

And Finally

Outcry prompts U-turn over killing wild birds to protect game birds in England

Crows across the land can roost safe in the realisation that the target has been taken off their backs – without wanting to sound flippant this is another story which demonstrates just how divided rural England is as a place in terms of the opinions of the general public.

The government has U-turned on guidance to shooters that reclassified pheasants as livestock, meaning that wild birds such as crows could be shot to protect them in certain circumstances, after a furious reaction from the public.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs changed the definition of livestock in its general shooting licences earlier this year. Under the new definition, game birds such as pheasants were considered livestock if given food, water or shelter by a keeper for their survival.

That meant that wild birds including carrion crows, jackdaws, rooks and magpies could be shot to protect them. General licences give broad permissions to shoot certain species of wild birds to protect livestock, help conservation and preserve public health and safety.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/11/outcry-prompts-u-turn-over-killing-wild-birds-to-protect-game-birds-in-england