Sensible solutions to health service provision in rural areas got the vote from the audience of the rural affairs anti-panel session at ruralnet|2005.
Day two of ruralnet|2005 created a spark of debate through a live anti-panel session with a twist. On this rare occasion, MPs Jim Knight and James Paice as well as Stuart Burgess, Chairman of the Commission for Rural Communities and Yorkshire Forwards’ Lord Haskins were all seated together with the task of grilling the audience for answers to their questions. BBC Rural Affairs Correspondent Tom Heap facilitated the session.
Tom set the pace for the hour-long session with a question about whether the taxpayer should subsidise rural Britain. From there onwards issues as varied as elderly people in rural areas (the ‘grey market’), migration to the countryside, farming issues, renewable energy and the value of the Post Office were batted back and forth. Jim Knight MP, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Rural Affairs asked Mike Granville, Head of Rural Strategy from the Post Office for his views on the best way of spending twenty thousand pounds for every rural post office branch. Co-location of services and the community value of the post office were both cited by Mike and John Longdon of Pub is the Hub as assets that must not be lost from rural communities.
At a pivotal moment in the debate, a comment from a representative from a grassroots organisation struck a chord with the audience and Ministers alike. In reply to one of the panels question on innovation and choice of services, in particular relating to health provision, the firm answer from the floor was...
“..What is the big deal about choice? Whether a person is from an urban area or a rural area, we just want a hospital that works. We are not interested in choice, we just want to go to the hospital down the road… we just want to get fixed please!”
This was followed by a point directed at the panel about some of the barriers that are experienced by people living in rural areas that can prevent choice of service provision...
“If you want us to have choice of services, scrap the administration barriers. I didn’t go to school near where I lived, as I was living on the wrong side of the county barrier…rural areas are always on the fringes of administrative areas . . . If you want to make a difference, let us move over these boundaries.”
Turning this novel and dynamic session on its head, the panel all contributed with their own questions for the audience made up of voluntary and community groups, regional development agencies, service providers and policy makers among many. 230 attended the annual event, the 5th rural regeneration conference ruralnet|uk has held.
A recording and transcript of the full anti-panel session is available to all delegates via the conference blog at http://ruralnet.typepad.com/conferenceblog/
Contact: Simon Berry
Editors notes
1. ruralnet|uk are a registered rural regeneration charity. See www.ruralnetuk.org
2. The ruralnet|2005 conference was held on 12-13 October 2005 at the Ramada Jarvis Hotel in Bramhope near Leeds, Yorkshire. The main sponsor was Regional Development Agency, Yorkshire Forward.
Comments