NEW high-tech methods of communication between hospitals and doctors serving remote communities in North Yorkshire are to be examined by the new health trust, which administers services in the north of the Yorkshire Dales.
The so-called "tele-medicine" has already been pioneered in the Scottish Highlands, where video links have been secured between surgeries and hospitals.
Members of Upper Wensleydale Parish Forum were told on Wednesday that a similar system was being explored by the Hambleton and Richmondshire Primary Care Trust.
Chief executive Chris Long said that transmitting x-ray images by computer and establishing video links between doctors' surgeries and hospitals could be the way ahead.
"However, it will take time. We don't get additional funding to take into account the sparsity of population in the dales, so development of these services will not be quick."
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