{"id":477680,"date":"2026-02-16T02:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T02:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/477680\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T02:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T02:48:08","slug":"challenges-of-being-a-gp-in-remote-areas-gps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/477680\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenges of being a GP in remote areas | GPs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Regarding your report (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/2026\/feb\/11\/coniston-lake-district-village-struggles-find-gp-chronic-doctor-shortage\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lake District village struggles to find GP \u2013 despite ad pledging \u2018we\u2019ll never run out of beer\u2019, 11 February<\/a>), Coniston\u2019s situation is not a question of marketing flair but of structural pressure in rural general practice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Findings from a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mddus.com\/about-us\/media-centre\/2023\/december\/most-uk-doctors-experiencing-moral-distress,-survey-shows\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> recent survey of our member doctors<\/a> working in rural and remote areas underline the scale of the challenge. One in four doctors told us that working in a single-handed practice has negatively affected their wellbeing or contributed to burnout.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">A striking 71% believe rural and remote healthcare is not properly understood by government and policymakers. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/doctors\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Doctors<\/a> have told us that there is a \u201clack of rural-proofing policy\u201d, with services increasingly centralised and general practice described as \u201cdefunded and salami-sliced\u201d. Others describe the pressure of covering wide areas with limited staff and patients who face long journeys to access secondary care.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Rural general practice remains professionally rewarding. But unless policy reflects the realities of isolation, workload and access, recruitment campaigns alone will not secure its future.<br \/>Dr John Holden<br \/>Chief medical officer, Medical and dental defence union of Scotland<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\"> Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2026\/feb\/15\/mailto:guardian.letters@theguardian.com?body=Please%20include%20your%20name,%20full%20postal%20address%20and%20phone%20number%20with%20your%20letter%20below.%20Letters%20are%20usually%20published%20with%20the%20author%27s%20name%20and%20city\/town\/village.%20The%20rest%20of%20the%20information%20is%20for%20verification%20only%20and%20to%20contact%20you%20where%20necessary.\" data-link-name=\"in body link \" https:=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">email<\/a> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tone\/letters\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">letters<\/a> section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Regarding your report (Lake District village struggles to find GP \u2013 despite ad pledging \u2018we\u2019ll never run out&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-477680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}