If ‘prevention is better than cure’, what more can be done to prevent rural ill-health?
A crisis-focused system has developed in health and care which is not only costly but also places enormous pressure on services.While efforts have focused on meeting immediate and acute demand, ill-health is not always inevitable and can often be prevented. In July 2019 the Government published a Prevention Green Paper setting out how it wants […]
A [not so] green and pleasant land – what more can be done to tackle fly-tipping?
While the vast majority of householders dispose of their waste responsibly, very sadly a minority do not. In 2017-2018 Local Authorities in England responded to just under 1 million (998,000) fly-tipping incidents; a slight decrease of 1% from the 1,011,000 reported in 2016-2017. Two-thirds (66%) of fly-tips involve household waste. In January 2019 new financial […]
How do other countries “think rurally?”
Rural England is not alone in dealing with issues like transport, broadband, affordable housing and access to services which can leave some people struggling to live, work and thrive in our rural communities. The OECD, for example, publishes comprehensive reviews of rural policy in individual countries as well as overarching analytical reports. Looking at rural […]
‘Working at scale’ – what do Primary Care Networks mean for rural communities?
Primary care services ‘provide the first point of contact in the healthcare system, acting as the front door of the NHS.’ It includes general practice, community pharmacy, dental and optometry services. It is also the route by which we most commonly access secondary parts of the NHS (e.g. planned hospital care, rehabilitative care, urgent/emergency care, […]
Apprenticeships – training people for (rural) jobs of the future?
Back in 2012, the Richard Review of Apprenticeships explored what apprenticeships should be like in the future, and how they could meet the needs of a changing economy. Upon finding an extraordinary number of qualifications, which could be stitched together in an infinite number of combinations leading to any number of possible outcomes Richard’s called […]
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