Dr Richard Davies' patients are prepared to wait - even thousands of miles away in the Falklands. Victoria Owen reports

Patients from all over the country come to Oxford for expert treatment. And although many travel hundreds of miles from the furthest corners of the land to acute wards in the city, there are a few who are willing to travel 18 hours for a consultation.

At least 20 Falkland Islanders are shipped in to nearby RAF Brize Norton every year ready for special attention from Oxford doctors.

The tiny community does not have the specialist expertise it often needs to carry out life-saving procedures on its own soil and the UK is a natural - if logistically strange - solution to the problem. Falkland Government medical officer Dr Richard Davies explains: "We have 2,500 people here and most specialists would cover an area of 30,000 people.

"There are just not enough people on the island to justify having any specialists. So we often go to them. We are unique in that people here expect a first world health service in a very remote area of the world."

Briton Dr Davies is not unfamiliar with the National Health Service on offer in the UK as, just over two years ago, he was a GP in Ipswich, Suffolk.

"My wife and I had always wanted to sail around the world and we arrived in the Falklands and there was a job going.

"Luckily they gave me the position, because Sarah was two months pregnant at the time!" Now he regularly pops back to his homeland, via RAF Hercules, where he consults with doctors overseeing islanders' care.

He says: "There are six flights every month and the RAF medevac plane goes twice a month. It is a Tristar with a medical team and stretchers.

"If patients are really critical we get an RAF Hercules to take them to Montevideo in Uruguay, where there is an English speaking doctor."

There is a population of 2,500 on the Falkland Islands, which lies in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Dr Davies is one of four doctors, while a general surgeon and an anaesthetist are supplied by the RAF, which has a base on the island. Except for a few minor procedures, most people are airlifted to the UK. They even rely on a visiting optician for prescription lenses for their glasses.

"Although we have no specialists, we do have a very wide range of treatments. We do most of the deliveries and Caesarean sections.

"By and large the service is extremely good, but we have a mutual agreement with the UK, which means our patients receive free NHS care and people travelling from the UK have free treatment when they are in the Falklands."

With flights costing up to 1,000 per person, sending people across the world is not always the best option, and in recent years UK consultants have been invited to take clinics on the islands.

The Oxford Mail recently reported on such a visit, when Opthalmic surgeon Mr Paul Rosen and nurse Angela Betts left the Radcliffe Infirmary for a fortnight's trip. Dr Davies says: "We get a few visiting specialists every year. I began to realise just how many people we had to send over and just how many people were too ill or infirm to go abroad."

Despite the problematic approach to health care on the islands, the doctor said his work - centring around King Edward V11 Memorial Hospital - was "stimulating".

He said: "It is less stressful than being a GP here in the UK. There aren't all the same types of targets and all that kind of thing. And I can get on with clinical medicine.

"The NHS is continually meddled with. It's not run enough by the clinicians - they are the ones who know how it works and should be running it. We run our service. But it's easier in a smaller community." And Dr Davies and his family are not planning to return to the UK for at least a few more years.

"The education is quite good and it's a lovely friendly community of people. It's a great place for children to grow up. We never lock our cars and most people don't even lock up their houses. There's little violence and no crime to speak of.

"Wind speeds are four times the speed of winds in Plymouth, it's exactly the same distance south of equator as Oxford is north, we have little rain and the wildlife is wonderful. It's a healthy way to live!"