I’m not surprised there were no takers. Tough though it is villages need to recognise that doctors need a life and that being a solitary doctor in a small cabinet is not the way forward. A group practice in a local town is so much better for all concerned. We had an experience where I threw OH in the car and drove straight to our surgery and he was seen immediately. That would not have happened with our previous on his own MT because he probably would not have been there.
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Yes, there’s one of those near us too. I remember driving through the village and thinking who the hell would want to live here, doctor or not 
Maybe raises the question of whether the sign on the roundabout and state of the village are linked: the sort of strategic thinking that sees a sign on a roundabout as the best way to attract a doctor perhaps isn’t that good at optimising the natural and built environment?
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I do get rather tired of per capita statements implying that there is enough of something. Whether a phone network covers 94% of the population, for example. But if you look closely, they only cover 80% of the geography.
I have similar debunks for per capita statements about doctors and particularly dentists.
What alternative objective measure do you suggest Karen?
More detailed (even very detailed) reporting.
I am absolutely unimpressed to know that Paris has MT doctors covering, say, 98% of the population. Or for them, could be even 102%.
I am however rivetingly interested in the fact that, say, Neuilly has 145% coverage, and Seine St Denis has availability varying from 10% of the population to 75%, varying by town, for example. Ditto the large swathes of ‘empty’ rural population areas.
Our youngest daughter has just moved to Paris and had the choice of several MT’s within her arrondissement so went with the nearest, someone moving to the Charente Maritime wouldn’t have that luxury and would be lucky to find one willing to take them on within 25/30 kms.
Using the per capita model France has around 270 MT’s per 100000 habitants yet in the CM it is well below that so there is clearly a local problem that needs addressing and with a growing but ageing population it needs addressing quickly.
It is worth watching the film African Doctor that shows a village trying to address this exact problem.
Well - of course you can find examples of higher and lower doctor etc coverage. Isn’t this proving the completely obvious? - isn’t it bound to be the case absolutely everywhere?
The previous discussion was not about this - I indeed previously made the point - several times - that there are local and temporary shortages, as experienced by discussion participants in some localities. But the discussion was specifically about whether such shortages are, in John’s word ‘nationwide’, to which Tim replied ‘Seriously?’
Same problem with priests. Obviously the less doctors you have the more priests you need 
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I wouldn’t be so sure.
The thread was actually about fuel shortages in the UK which were/are localised yet ‘localised’ doesn’t fit the ‘UK is pants’ narrative. 
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I don’t think you can say ‘local and temporary’ in the same breath. Locally, especially here rurally and probably elsewhere, is 'Locally and persistently" and I bet most local shortages are persistent. Lumping locally with temporarily even with an ‘or’ rather than an ‘and’ implies that both are the case.
Everything I’ve read and what locals tell me about dentists in particular, in our rural but not ridiculously rural area, tells me our shortages are local across some relatively big geography and persistent. I bet that lack is persistent nationwide, in almost all places it locally occurs.
Semantics Karen. I meant there are no doubt local shortages and there are also no doubt temporary shortages - as the articles linked by Tim set out. What they don’t say is that there is a general or ‘nationwide’ shortage - indeed they talk about how to keep provision at current levels! Nor is the idea of a general shortage supported by any other evidence I can find, or other contributors have offered - unless you erect a standard far higher than most other countries.
But then reality always falls short of the ideal, doesn’t it?
It’s very easy to think, as Strudball said, that because in your locality you have difficulty finding a dentist etc there’s a shortage over a large area, like the whole Department - but in fact elsewhere in the same department there is no problem at all. When we first arrived in France other English people told us it was nearly impossible to get ophthalmologist appointments - there was talk of 6-month waiting lists, etc - with the result that we actually went over to Jersey for eye tests and glasses (and, admittedly, a nice little holiday). But in fact - as we discovered next time one of us needed an appointment - there is absolutely no problem getting eye examinations in a matter of days!
For people looking at SurviveFrance with a view to moving here, it’s important that we don’t give the impression that getting excellent, responsive medical treatment of any kind is a problem - generally speaking, it isn’t.
Not sure what news you have been reading! Overall this is a big issue in France. And yes there are pockets that are fine but that is absolutely not everywhere. As I have rabbited on endlessly the numerus clausus that was in effect up to this year has restricted new entrants. And it will be 5+ years before the changes result in doctors sitting in surgeries…
Personally I want France to maintain previously high standards, so just because it remains better than the UK is irrelevant.
I don’t see why doctors and dentists would not want to live in rural towns, after all a lot of other people chose to do so, otherwise there would be no need for them at all.
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Towns, yes, where they are part of a group practice. The problem is the villages where people (especially the elderly) expect their one poor doctor (or dentist) in his/her cabinet on his/her own to be at their beck and call 24 hours a day.
Certainly our local town (10,000 inhabitants) in the boondocks so far as those who live in large cities are concerned had no problem recruiting doctors to their two group practices, whereas a few years ago we were hearing the same story: “Dr A is retiring and Dr B will be doing so next year, what are we going to do?” Well all those who were whingeing now know.
I wish that more villages would adopt the model used by a village not too far from Roumazierers-Loubert (16270). The village has a small medical centre staffed by a receptionist and 3 doctors who are ‘seconded’ from the Confolens hospital. Each doctor works a couple of days in the village, the rest of the time at the hospital.
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Houses have been flying off the shelves here in recent months. Hopefully some will have been bought by doctors and dentists!
Great idea Nigel. That’s what frustrates me about villages that think all they need to do is put an advert on a roundabout - there are solutions if the local commune committee adopts a can-do attitude.