paul

Most of this has already been completed, at great labour,  for all
practices in England & Wales - by Nigel Rice and Paul Dixon of the York
Centre for Health Economics  - working together with the Prescribing
Support Unit at Leeeds on a contract from the NHS Executive Resource
Allocation and Funding Team

The only aspect of your study that is not yet covered by Paul and
Nigel's work is that of focussing on specific categories of drugs rather
than on total prescribing expenditure. I strongly advise you to talk to
the York Centre - and Dave Roberts at PSU - or you may spend a lot of
time re-invinting the wheel.   

Tom Hennell

Paul Ward wrote:
> 
> Note: Some recipients have been dropped due to syntax errors.
> Please refer to the "$AdditionalHeaders" item for the complete headers.
> 
> I have recently started a PhD at the University of Manchester,
> jointly supervised by the School of Pharmacy and the School of
> Epidemiology.
> 
> I am interested in looking at  GP prescribing for specific
> (as yet, not chosen) drugs and then assessing how this
> relates to epidemiologically defined proxies for need (i.e. does GP
> prescribing relate to need?).  I would be interested to hear
> from anyone who has undertaken similar work or
> knows of similar work.
> 
> The study will take place in a couple of health authorities in the
> North West.  I will use PACT  data to map GP prescribing and then
> derive proxies for need at GP level.  At the moment, I plan to use a
> mix of morbidity, mortality, demographic and socio-economic variables in
> order to build the models of need for the specified drugs.
> 
> Once I have derived the proxies and then looked at how these relate to
> actual prescribing, I will undertake a qualitative study with GP's,
> patients and hospital doctors in order to understand the patterns
> found.
> 
> QUESTIONS:
> 
> Does anyone know of similar work undertaken which may be useful for
> my study?
> 
> Can anyone provide constructive criticism?  This would be extremely
> helpful at this stage of the study, as I am still in the planning
> stage.
> 
> In order to derive proxies for need, I plan to use data at
> enumeration district level, and then use the ED to postcode file in
> order to build a model at GP practice level.  Has anyone done this?
> Can anyone provide information on the practicalities or pitfalls on
> doing this?
> 
> Thankyou.
> 
> Paul Ward
> Research Associate
> 
> Drug Usage and Pharmacy Practice Group
> School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
> University of Manchester
> Oxford Road
> Manchester
> 
> Tel: 0161 - 275 2415
> Fax: 0161 - 275 2416

-- 
Tom Hennell
Strategic Analyst
NHS Executive North West
930-932 Birchwood Boulevard
Millenium Park
Birchwood
Warrington WA3 7QN

tel 01925 704209
fax 01925 704230

e-mail [log in to unmask]


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