Fyi – article in the Guardian re the NHS Atlas of Variation

Excerpt below. Full article at www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/dec/09/nhs-lottery-survey-uk-disparities

NHS Atlas of Variation, a government analysis of regional treatment, shows huge inequalities in quality, quantity and costs. The postcode lottery of treatment in the NHS has been exposed by the largest government analysis of healthcare in England, which reveals wide regional disparities in patient treatment.

The NHS Atlas of Variation, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, lays bare the tension between the health secretary's vision of a "localised" health service and the need to impose basic minimum standards of acceptable care.

While ministers accept that "some variation is warranted because different populations have different levels of need", the differences in cost, quality and patients outcome mean that "unwarranted" inequalities need to be ironed out.

The most stark contrast shows up in the rate of prescribing anti-dementia drugs, with patients in some parts of the country – such as North Lancashire – prescribed 25 times as many treatments and tablets to help "temporarily improve or stabilise symptoms" than in Kent…..

David McDaid

Senior Research Fellow

PSSRU, LSE Health and Social Care and European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies

London School of Economics and Political Science

London

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