Worrying to think Manchester's inequality of income is being transmitted into our healthcare
- 25.08.2016
- HannahBottomley
- Clinical-negligence, Opinion, Clinical-negligence, Opinion
I was concerned to read the recent article by the “National Health Executive” that three Manchester Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) have found themselves on the top 5 list of worst CCGs for inequality in health.
The headline suggestion is of course worrying, our three main CCGs (South, Central and North) are within the top 5 worst but when breaking it down this was in respect of inequality. To consider where these figures have come from and what they mean for us as patients in the Manchester area I looked into the data further.
The data itself comes from new indicators of inequality in avoidable emergency admissions, used as part of the NHS Clinical Commissioning Group Improvement and Assessment Framework.
The indicators look at the CCG’s difference in rate of hospitalisations between the poorest and richest areas and for Central Manchester, which was the worst on the list, was rated as 2,136 for every 100,000 people. However, the indicators show that there is not necessarily a correlation between the deprivation of an area and shortfalls in health inequality. For example Tower Hamlets, considered to be a relatively deprived area, appeared on the top 10 best performing CCGs with a value of 237 per 100,000.
So what does this mean for Manchester? Are we an area of huge inequality and how this does this affect our healthcare services?
To be honest, I don’t think this data can give us a clear answer. We know Manchester as an area has inequality of income across the board but the fact that this is being transmitted into our healthcare is a worry but how is not clear.
I for one will be keeping a close eye on how our city deals with the developed health and social budget which was recently approved and hope that inequality becomes a things of the past and all residents of Manchester received the same, excellent healthcare we are entitled to expect.