Variations in health care in the NHS are a persistent and ubiquitous problem. But which variations are acceptable or warranted – for example, variations driven by clinical need and informed patient choice – and which are not? The important question is how to promote ‘good’ variation and minimise ‘bad’ variation. ...
This data briefing aims to highlight for commissioners the opportunity for improving the quality of care and saving costs that reducing emergency hospital admissions for ambulatory care-sensitive conditions (ACSCs) presents. It uses Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data to examine the sociodemographic
patterns of emergency admissions for each ACSC and calculates ...