Rural Health Week 2008

Rural Health Week | Press Releases | Messages of Support | Events

About Rural Health Week

The dates of this year's Rural Health Week are: Sunday 28th September to Saturday 4th October 2008.

Rural Health Week is an annual event run for the Institute of Rural Health by the Rural Health Forum. Each year we pick a 'theme' for the week and this year's theme is:

"A breath of fresh air - making tracks to health & wellbeing in the countryside"

The aim of the week is to raise the profile of rural health issues locally, regionally and nationally. The Institute and the Forum run a number of national events and target the national press to raise awareness of rural health issues. Since 2002 other agencies and organisations have joined in with events in their own localities.

What are the issues for rural communities?

Most people living or working in rural communities will be familiar with the difficulties faced in both accessing rural services and in delivering good quality services to dispersed communities. The widely held perception is that the countryside is a 'healthy' place to live, and indeed this is true for many rural residents. However, rural areas face specific challenges in relation to accessing and delivering services and this can have a negative impact on the health and well being of people living in these areas. The nature of rural communities, sparsity and remoteness can compound these issues by making it difficult to identify and measure need. However, service providers, in both statutory and voluntary sectors, in rural areas are frequently innovative in their response to these challenges.

This year Rural Health Week will focus on the development of effective co-operation between all those involved in providing rural health and social care. The very nature of rural areas means that co-operation and joint working is even more important if services are to be delivered effectively, safely and at the right time.

Rural Health Week 2008 provides an opportunity for service providers to promote the innovative and exciting examples of good practice that are taking place in rural areas across the UK.

How can you join in?

Joining the week is very easy and you can get as involved as you like. You could:

• Organise an event
• Launch a new project or strand of work
• Set up an exhibition for your community or a talk for your agency or organisation
• Don't forget to advertise your event on the Rural Health Week web page
• Target your local press. Write an article or invite them along to your event
• Highlight a 'hot' rural health issue on the Rural Health Week web page
• Run a rural health information day
• Advertise Rural Health Week on your web site
• Simply send a message of support for the week to the web page
• Find out what others are doing from the Rural Health Week Events page

Send your information and details to:

or

GO ON!!

GET INVOLVED, PUT RURAL HEALTH ON THE AGENDA

MAKE RURAL HEALTH WEEK A SUCCESS!!

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