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Age, distance from a hospital, and level of deprivation are influential factors
EDITOR,--In his editorial on the increase in emergency admissions Richard Hobbs mentions the wide variation in general practitioners' referral patterns.1 He does not, however, consider the impact of the distance from a district general hospital on these referrals, the level of deprivation, or the age distribution of the patients in each practice; these three factors are often thought by general practitioners to influence their referrals.
In North Worcestershire we have investigated the relation between the number of general and geriatric medical emergency admissions in 1993-4 and many characteristics of general practice. These characteristics included the distance of the main practice premises from the nearest district general hospital, the level of deprivation experienced by the practice (based on the Townsend score), and the proportion of the practice population aged over 65. When correlation analysis was used the proportion of the variation that could be explained by these factors singly was 11%,
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- Rising emergency admissions
- Richard Hobbs
BMJ 1995 310: 207-208.[Extract] [Full Text]
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