OPM’s blog articles

Challenges for public service delivery in rural England

by Diane Beddoes

For people who are disabled or amongst the growing ageing population, accessing services can mean relying on the goodwill and time of friends or neighbours. People who live in urban areas, with public services close by and public transport relatively frequent and wide-ranging, often forget that things can be very different in rural England. OPM’s work with the Commission for Rural Communities (CRC) has looked at some of the challenges facing people using and providing public services in rural areas.

In all of our work in rural communities, service users and providers have highlighted the impact of unreliable, infrequent or sometimes non-existent public transport.

Reviewing local public service delivery

As part of our work to inform the CRC’s response to Lord Darzi’s review of the NHS, we ran a series of workshops around England. We asked people what they like about their local health services and what they would like to see improved.

One of the places we visited, Nancegollan, in the Kerrier district of Cornwall, has one community bus a week and no shops. In Allerston, North Yorkshire, reaching the bus stop means climbing a hill.

Meeting basic needs

For people who are disabled or amongst the growing rural ageing population, this means relying on the goodwill and time of friends or neighbours.

Making services fair, personalised, effective and safe for people in rural areas has been recognised as a priority. In response to an online survey, health professionals identified improving access to services as one of the top three actions that would be beneficial. For example, providing services in more convenient locations or by funding free transport could help to make services more effective.

Health professionals were keenly aware that the prospect of travelling long distances could make people decide against taking up necessary treatment, or make visiting sick relatives in hospital expensive and time-consuming.

For more information about our work with the CRC, email Diane Beddoes or phone her on 020 7239 7841.

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