Rethink needed on access to healthcare for farmers and rural communities

The Ploughing Through Barriers report highlights how many farmers feel left behind, suffer in silence and battle a system that is not built for them.

The study found that while the county is home to over 6,000 farms, with 85 per cent of the county classed as ‘super-sparse or very rural’, farmers are facing mental health challenges, difficulty accessing GPs and hospitals and increasing isolation.

A lot of farmers are reluctant to seek help because time away from their work is simply not possible. Add to that the financial pressure many are already under, they cannot afford to hire staff to cover for time away from the business. The unpredictable nature of farm work also makes it difficult to arrange appointments. What this shows is that the NHS needs to rethink its approach when it comes to rural healthcare, with distance, limited transport and poor internet making access difficult.

Rather than focusing on getting people to surgeries, the emphasis should be on creating a network of healthcare professionals that are capable of delivering mobile clinics. It also needs specialists in rural health that understand the concerns of farmers and communities in the countryside.

Farmers are doing the all important job of putting food on people’s tables. But as one farmer says “Farmers are resilient, but they’re not invincible.”

That is why accessibility to healthcare needs to be improved.