Charity offers farmer health checks at Great Yorkshire Show

Farmers visiting to the Great Yorkshire Show are set to benefit from a free health MoT, with a registered nurse on hand to carry out basic health screening, including blood pressure, weight checks and eye tests.

Field Nurse, a small charity employing registered nurses to provide health and wellbeing advice to farmers and those living in rural communities, is bringing its health checks trailer to the show (8-11 July), and farmers are invited to drop into the charity trailer, located near Brown Gate and the Fleeces marquee.

Field Nurse is also promoting its “Farming Stronger for Longer” campaign at the show, which gives farmers a series of simple daily exercises they can do on-farm to keep themselves physically fit.

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The charity is part of a health and wellbeing project across the north of England, which benefited nearly 1,300 farmers and others within the wider farming community.

Together with other agricultural charities and organisations, including the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, Utass (Upper Teesdale Agricultural Support Services) and The Farmer Network, Field Nurse is collaborating to deliver vital support to farming families and has secured a £150,000 grant from Defra’s Farmer Welfare Fund.

Day-to-day, the charity works out of seven livestock auctions in Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cumbria (Brockholes, Clitheroe, Gisburn, Bentham, Skipton, Otley and Penrith), where it provides regular drop-in clinics, as well as attending local agricultural shows and other farming events such as Young Farmers’ Clubs and farmer discussion groups.

The charity has also expanded its services to two new auction marts, with nurses available to offer free farmer health checks at Otley in Yorkshire and Penrith in Cumbria. 

“Both these nurses are available each week for regular health checks with farmers attending the auction and can also go to agricultural shows and other events to raise awareness of their services and offer health checks on-site,” said Kathryn Phillips, Field Nurse trustee.