Rural stakeholders are urged to register for a free conference on ways of delivering health services.

The one-day event, Challenging Times – Working together to deliver effective rural health services, is being held on 26 November.

It takes place at Nottingham Forest Football Club, Nottingham.

Nottinghamshire NHS Trust has been working with the Rural Services Partnership and the Institute of Rural Health to develop a proposal for a strategic Rural Health Network.

The group would bring together, at a national level, health organisations and other partners to facilitate ideas, development and the sharing of best practice in the provision and development of health services to rural populations.

Devolved responsibilities across the UK also provides an opportunity to also learn from experiences in different health care systems and membership of the Rural Health Network will be open to interested organisations from across the UK.

The conference will see the launch of this network.

The event will be chaired by Baroness Byford of the All Parliamentary Policy Group on Rural Services.

Leading clinicians and academics working in the field of rural health provision are supporting and presenting at the conference.

The programme also provides opportunities to attend several professional workshops looking at specific issues in more depth.

The Rural Services Network believes that the following additional benefits would accrue from organisations joining and participating in this new group:-

* Increased service group work at network meetings and further facilitated through e-mail conferencing

* Sharing of best practice and learning across the sector through running a national rural health commissioners group together with relevant providers, linking to other rural service providers with common interests (e.g. local government and the third sector, including internet linking).

* An interactive website supporting the new network with rural health and wellbeing specific content

* Rural Proofing – opportunity for participative engagement and discussion

* Annual events to showcase best practice

* Pathways to national decision makers to raise the profile of members' key concerns about rural health delivery.

* Through the Network, identify common areas for further research (although this may require additional funding to commission and publish).

This conference will be breaking new ground and has already stimulated considerable interest across the sector.

Leading academics will be facilitating a variety of workshops including a new Rural Proofing toolkit commissioned by DEFRA from the IRH and another on Rural Resourcing.

Attendance at the event will provide free membership of the Network for the first year.

You can register an interest in attending the conference by emailing Sarah.peet@nottshc.nhs.uk or Sharon.eaton@nottshc.nhs.uk

For full details, including a programme, click here.