Trends in Rural Scotland: a working paper (2025)

7. Health and social care

Waiting time to see or speak to a doctor or nurse from a General Practice

As of 2023-24, 91% of people find it easy to contact their GP in remote rural areas and 80% of people find it easy to contact their GP in accessible rural areas. This is significantly higher than the average for Scotland (76%). However, these figures have decreased from 95% and 90% respectively since 2017-18. This decline is evident across all areas in Scotland.

Quality of care experience

As of 2023-24, 81% of people had a positive quality of care experience in remote rural areas and 71% of people had a positive quality of care experience in accessible rural areas. This is significantly higher than the average for Scotland (69%). However, these figures have decreased from 88% and 85% respectively since 2017-18. This decline is evident across all areas in Scotland.

Self-assessed general health

From 2012, self-assessed general health has declined across rural areas in Scotland.

Healthy Life Expectancy for males

Healthy life expectancy is higher in rural Scotland. It is highest in accessible rural areas for males, at around 63.2 years for males in 2019-21, which is almost 7 years higher than other urban areas. From 2018-2020 to 2019-2021 there has been a slight decrease in healthy life expectancy across all areas in Scotland.

Healthy Life Expectancy for females

Healthy life expectancy is highest in remote rural areas for females in 2019-21, at around 66.20 years which is almost 8 years higher than for females in other urban areas. Females in remote rural areas appear to diverge from the general Scottish trend which is a slow and slight decrease in healthy life expectancy for females.

These findings coincide and support other findings for rural areas: general better satisfaction with GPs, self-assessed general health, quality of care and mental wellbeing in rural areas. This may suggest greater overall health and social care in rural areas, but quality of living and differences in physical activity cannot be excluded.

Help, care or support received improved or maintained quality of life

As of 2023-24, 66% of people had a positive response, when asked if help, care or support received had improved or maintained their quality of life, in remote rural areas and 60% of people had a positive response in accessible rural areas. This is marginally higher, though there is little difference, than the average for Scotland (61%). However, these figures have decreased from 82% and 81% respectively since 2017-18. This decline is evident across all areas in Scotland.

Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) score^[8]

Mental Well-being decreased across all areas in Scotland between 2017 and 2022 but remained highest in rural areas. Between 2022 and 2023 average well-being levels improved slightly in both urban and rural areas.