Rural Access to Health and Care Services

Rural residents face distinct healthcare challenges, including limited access to transport, longer distances to medical facilities, an aging demographic, housing inadequacies, digital connectivity gaps, and recruitment hurdles for healthcare workers.

Hot Topics

04 May 2020

Health and Social Care Spotlight – May 2020

This newsletter on rural health is provided for the RSN and the Rural Health and Care Alliance It includes a roundup of rural health news, research, learning and best practice. If you...

Read more

27 Apr 2020

COVID-19 death rates ‘could be 80% higher in rural communities’

The Evening Standard published a study which has predicted significantly higher levels of COVID-19 fatalities in rural locations due to larger ageing populations The analysis found that death rates could...

Read more

27 Apr 2020

Despite a strong community spirit, COVID-19 is exposing real challenges in our rural areas

Philip Dunne MP (Con) has written an article for Politics Home, arguing that due to factors such as a concentration of jobs in key employers as well as a lack...

Read more

27 Apr 2020

Rural organisations call for lockdown travel guidelines to be reviewed

Several news outlets including the BBC, Yorkshire Post and Sky, report on calls from rural groups against recent advice to police forces that it is lawful to drive somewhere to...

Read more

20 Apr 2020

RSN make contact with the Government on exit strategy and the implications for rural communities

The Rural Services Network has written to The Rt Hon. Matthew Hancock (Secretary of State for Health and Social Care) along with other key rural organisations to open discussions regarding...

Read more

14 Apr 2020

Food deliveries from volunteers provide lifeline

Families in parts of rural England say they are totally dependent on volunteers delivering food during the coronavirus crisis In rural England many households face long journeys to buy food...

Read more

14 Apr 2020

Rural counties see a spike in covid-19 cases amid fury over ‘Coronavirus holidays’

The Conversation, an online publication that publishes academic articles, published data from genetics professor Tim Spector’s COVID-19 symptom tracker app which suggests that people leaving the city for the countryside...

Read more

14 Apr 2020

Ministers urged to step up help to stop people choosing between ‘heating and eating’ amid coronavirus crisis

Politics Home reported that a coalition of Liberal Democrat, Labour, SNP and Green MPs have written to Business Secretary Alok Sharma to demand a major expansion of a scheme offering...

Read more

14 Apr 2020

Young Somerset digitised their 1-to-1 therapy service in just one week

Four weeks ago Young Somerset were supporting 350 young people a week through face-to-face youth work and interventions. Their digital infrastructure could best be described as ‘fledgling’ Then, like it...

Read more

06 Apr 2020

The remote and rural hospitals at threat from coronavirus

The health publication HSJ reports that the coronavirus outbreak is currently a highly regionalised feature in the UK This means that hospitals in more remote areas, often with older populations...

Read more