A collaborative approach involving access to rural and remote lived experiences has proven successful worldwide. Developing a new national remote and rural policy risks unintended and costly local consequences. Often small rural communities (such as Wigtownshire Caithness and Skye) have similar issues, but boards inevitably focus on closer and larger urban agendas. A Scottish collaborative approach to promote improvement in rural health and social care by collating evidence of systemic inequity and inequality in healthcare in remote and rural communities identified by informed local representative groups would address the poorer clinical outcomes, travel/access, resource and travel support, mitigate the effects of rural health inequalities and the current lack of agency/advocacy that was demonstrated in the many submissions to petition 1845. Developing a process to collect and collate such data would ensure local engagement, lead to better decision making and ultimately share accountability.
the current system in our rural area (Wigtownshire) has resulted in many patients being put in dangerous situations whilst trying to access health care. Maternity services locally are causing many of my peers to opt out of having children as they are unable to have safe access to services throughout their pregnancy without the need to travel excessive distance.
We had to travel to Inverness weekly for blood tests for our baby as no one in Caithness could do it. We struggled getting the prescription meds our baby needed too as only hosptial pharmacies could dispense it. We went to Glasgow during pregnancy for a fetal heart scan because no one in Caithness/Raigmore could do it and then had to deliver in Glasgow. A visting consultat was up in Raigmore who wanted to see us but no one told us until the day he was up we couldn't drop everything and travel to Raigmore. They then wanted us in Glasgow for this appointment (ended up not happening.) I'm under care of the perinatal mental healt team and the only access is phone appointments because they're all based in Inverness and don't come up here
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