ELIN Jones, the Ceredigion AM and campaigner for rural health services, has used a public debate in Aberystwyth to highlight possible solutions to NHS recruitment in areas such as Ceredigion.

The public debate on rural health services was organised by Aberystwyth University’s Centre for Welsh Legal Affairs, and chaired by Lord Elystan Morgan.

Elin Jones, the Plaid Cymru AM for Ceredigion, said,

“I think it’s important that Aberystwyth University takes an interest in the policy challenges facing our NHS, and I call on the Health Boards to work much more closely with higher education in order to address the challenges of recruiting medical staff. We must plan ahead; we already know, for example, that many GPs will be retiring in the next few years. Our medical schools could introduce rural medicine as a specific subject in order to address the problem of over-specialisation.

“We’ve seen with the current Welsh Government a trend towards centralising services, and recruitment problems are part of the issue. If we’re to attract doctors and other health professionals into working in rural Wales and other areas of shortage we need to look at offering financial incentives. Such schemes are already working in similar countries such as New Zealand.”