Centralising healthcare damages services in rural areas says peer

In her speech, Baroness Bennett said that rural services have been run down, and poor public transport makes remaining services harder to access. Ms Bennett argued that ‘efficiency’ has meant moving services away from rural areas, leading to a health service that, she said, was increasingly centralised at either the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital or Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital.

“This is undoubtedly cheaper for the NHS, but the cost is transferred to individuals.

“Cost, age, disability and a lack of transport lead to people either seeking healthcare later, which greatly increases costs to the NHS in the long run, or simply deciding to go without, with significant social, personal and economic impacts.”

She said access had worsened in recent years.

"Public transport is often simply non-existent. The NHS’s own figures state that 45,000 people live 30 minutes or more away from a GP practice by public transport.”

Her speech also highlighted the loss of midwife-led care in rural areas and highlighted the risks to community hospitals.

Instead of repeated cuts, Ms Bennett called for a strategy of how they can best be used for local people and the local healthcare system, taking medium acuity patients to relieve some of the enormous pressures that the acute hospitals are experiencing.

"This ensures people can visit patients and that patients can remain in and be part of their communities."

“It is suggested that Shropshire could become a centre for training and education for rural healthcare, perhaps teaming up with Keele University to offer better services to meet local needs."

Healthy Greens Co-lead John Crowe said: "The NHS contract between the British people and its government is now, as it has always been, that we all receive the best quality and timely treatment and care whenever we clinically need it. Britain has the sixth wealthiest economy in the world - we must all demand sufficient doctors, nurses and other health workers to deliver patient needs; failure to so is nothing less than a dereliction of government responsibility."

Shropshire Green Party Councillor Julian Dean said: "Natalie has always taken a keen interest in rural issues here, so it was good to see her taking the opportunity to highlight the inequality in access to healthcare faced by those in our county who don’t live in Shrewsbury or Telford, which adds another layer of danger on top of the crises with waiting lists, emergency care and access to GPs”.