NHS trusts ‘keeping to government priorities’

The NHS Alliance has rebuffed claims from the King’s Fund that some parts of the country suffer disparities in funding for the treatment certain diseases.

Dr Michael Dixon, chair of the alliance, said that primary care trusts were “universally” trying to meet the same government standards in a uniform fashion.

He told BBC One’s Lunchtime News that there were variations in the way services were provided, but that this did not necessarily amount to differences in the quality of care.

“Different costs may sometimes be differences in efficiency,” said Dr Dixon.

“You may get one trust that is paying more for its services but that is simply because people are having to go to hospitals and having costs that don?t necessarily mean better care,” he added.

The King’s Fund said that a postcode lottery existed concerning the way diseases were treated, stemming from the fact that “different doctors, different nurses, different healthcare professionals tend to make slightly different decisions about how to commit resources and how to treat patients”, according to Professor John Appleby, chief economist of the King’s fund, speaking to BBC One’s Breakfast programme.

Lord Warner, the health minister, defended against the claims, telling Radio Five Live’s Breakfast programme that the variations indicated the collective efforts of physicians making individual clinical decisions.

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