Last year a survey by the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) looked at the most pressing issues affecting the health of rural communities.

Some of the results showed that three top issues that impact on the health or rural communities are:

• access to services (75.6 per cent)
• demographic change (58.5 per cent)
• transport (53.6 per cent).

The survey asked how great a concern rural health inequalities are amongst local partners:

• 63.4 per cent said that they are a significant concern
• 19 per cent a very significant concern
• 17 per cent not a significant concern.
  

The IDeA’s Healthy Communities Programme is now hosting a joint conference in partnership with the Department of Health, Department for Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Commission for Rural Communities (CRC) on the subject of rural health and wellbeing on 17 March.

Councillor David Rogers, Chair of the LGA’s Community and Wellbeing Board said about the importance of the day:

"the conference represents a great opportunity to highlight the inequalities which can often be hidden in rural areas and demonstrate the role that local government can play in improving rural health and supporting wellbeing."

The conference, chaired by John Craven, long time presenter of BBC’s Countryfile, will bring together over 140 delegates from local government, the NHS and the voluntary sector to hear from key speakers including Stewart Burgess CRC’s Rural Advocate and Peter Goldblatt a member of the Strategic Review of Health Inequalities in England Post 2010 (Marmot Review) team. 

Delegates will share experiences through a series of workshops and share their own local challenges and successes in delivering for rural communities.

Key discussion topics include:

• access to services
• the ageing rural population
• developing a strategy for improving rural health
• delivering in a challenging public sector funding context. 

Healthy Rural Communities: a national conference

Further information

If you would like to talk to someone from the Healthy Communities team post the conference about the issues that were raised please contact the IDeA press office.

Paul Bailey
telephone: 020 7296 6529
email: paul.bailey@idea.gov.uk