Rural Healthcare

Luke Evans Excerpts

Wednesday 12th October 2022 Westminster Hall

[Anne Marie Morris]

That is an exceptionally fine point. I have no issue with it because we have a similar problem in Devon. The solution is not just about more recruitment and doing things in the same way, because the people to be recruited do not exist. We need to look at doing things differently, by creating new career paths with shorter training periods and trying to train, so we can then recruit, locally. Generally, people will follow a career where they are trained. We need more rural training for doctors and nurses, and that training needs to be not in the local city, but in the rural areas. For example, in Plymouth we have a fine medical school— Peninsula Medical School—but the challenge is that the experience that the individual trainee doctors and nurses gain is not rural, and it needs to be.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a fine point. From my experience, there is an opportunity: young doctors who are becoming GPs tend to be between the ages of 27 and 35. At that time, most people are looking to set up their family, go to school and get married. If we extend some of the career opportunities by extending training in those areas, they are more likely to bed down roots and gain a skill to become a GPSI—a GP with a special interest—in those areas. Does she believe that is a formula that the Government should look at?

[Anne Marie Morris]

I absolutely agree, and it is an excellent suggestion. In a similar vein, when we are asking primary care networks and others to deal with the backlog, it is important that we try to give them much more freedom in how they address the problem. I talk to many of my local commissioners, and they say that they are having to make decisions that they know are right, even though they are not currently in the guidebook as best practice. We need to give them that trust to be able to do the right thing.

C is for care. Members will not be surprised to hear that the adult social care discharge fund, although welcome, is not going to be enough. The reality is that the bed count is often low in rural areas. In the south-west, we have the lowest bed count per head of population; I think it is the lowest in western Europe, although I am happy for the Minister to correct me. It seems to me that we used to be moving towards saying, just in time, “Let’s have care in the community.” However, because of the shortage of care in the community, and the lack of proper validation that it works other than whether people are readmitted, we need to put a halt to closing community hospitals and to look at how they can be used. Some could be repurposed. Perfection can often be the enemy of the good.

Teignmouth Community Hospital in my constituency is on the closure list, but to me that is not a wise decision. There are no nursing care homes in the area. Without that residential care, and without adequate care in the community, removing the only other source of beds is not the way to solve the backlog problem.