Headlines, PublicNet: 1 June, 2006
The financial problems faced by some National Health Service Primary Care Trusts may have more to do with the types of patients they serve than the way they are managed. Research released today shows that trusts in deficit tend to be in better off areas.The research, published in the open access journal BMC Health Services Research, studied 29 trusts that are in deficit and 29 in surplus. It found those with a shortfall tended to be in relatively affluent rural areas in the East of England, while those with a budget surplus served more deprived urban areas. It reveals marked socioeconomic and density differences between the populations served by the two groups and concludes the differences between trusts’ financial performance are unlikely to be due to bad management alone and must be influenced by the characteristics of the populations they cover.
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