A revised Inverse Care Law

Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Mon, 08/17/2009 - 09:48

An experimental lifeTudor Hart's Inverse Care Law[1] states "The availability of good medical care tends to vary inversely with the need for it in the population served. This ... operates more completely where medical care is most exposed to market forces, and less so where such exposure is reduced."
This was certainly the case in 1971, to the extent that a minister for health even as late as 2001 thanked the Asian doctors and GPs that work in so many of our deprived areas, where white doctors were unwilling to work. I believe that there is much better provision of health care services in deprived areas. Yes it's far from perfect, but we're a long way forwards from where we were in 1971.
However the poor aren't getting healthier.
There could be any number of reasons for this. Cheap food of dubious nutritional value. Lower expectation of health. Lower self-responsibility for exercise and activity. others?
A revised Inverse Care Law
I'd like to propose an alternative Inverse Care Law. Simply stated:
"Those who need most, ask least"
Those who have the greatest need of health care and support, are also the ones with the lowest expectation that they are entitled to it. The rich and middle-class make full use of the health services available, including GP, A&E, urgent care centres, hospital, NHS Direct; health activities that may not be vital for continuing life but that make them feel better. The 'worried well' and 'only slightly sick'. Whereas some in deprived areas assume that it is normal to take time off work due to sickness every month, to have irritable bowel, to be tired the whole time, to get old. They don't ask for help, because they don't believe help is available
References
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_care_law

Keywords:

Comments

Recent Additions and Updates

If I were running the country - encouraging business

Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Tue, 05/21/2013 - 09:33

Keywords:

Minimum wage

Fantasy government - what would I do if I were in government?  Well how about reduce corporation tax, increase income tax, increase minimum wage and invest in job creation in the regions?  That would be a good start - create jobs where there are workers, then make sure that the right amount of tax is collected and at the same time reduce spend on benefits which are only used to increase profits of selfish organisations.

Would it work?  Have your say.

PwC Report on the Current State of Project Management

Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Fri, 05/17/2013 - 10:44

Keywords:

PwC Project Management ReportPwC found that successful companies are getting more mature in their project management ability.  This raises the game – successful companies have lower costs from fewer failed projects, and less successful companies have to work harder to catch up.  There are some important lessons to take this report for everyone – Read more…

Joy instead of tedium

Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Fri, 05/10/2013 - 21:04

Keywords:

The Office

Every office has them - the tasks that have to be done that nobody likes doing.  Whether it's the audit, the wages, standard letters, whatever it is - someone has to do it and it feels like a waste of time and money.

Why should you care?

So you employ somebody, so why do you care about how tedious the task is? Well they are costing money, to do something that could be done far more effectively.

Learning from the Past

Submitted by HugoM on Fri, 05/10/2013 - 20:27

Evidence for service improvement

Many public service changes have little basis in evidence. Their success (or otherwise) does not appear to depend on how 'good' the policy itself is, but rather on how it has been implemented. This relies on staff attitudes and relationships. My research falls into a number of broad categories: finding out what is currently happening; what people think about it; and what people think it will mean.

Keywords:

Taxonomy upgrade extras:

Consumer Price Index (CPI) Calculator for SROI

Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Tue, 04/16/2013 - 10:05

Keywords:

CPI components

When calculating a Social Return on Investment (SROI) evaluation or SROI forecast , sometimes you have to rely on published figures from reports.  But if these are from a few years ago, then they probably need adjusting for inflation.

There are calculators on the web to do this for you, but I found them cumbersome and it was difficult to keep a record of what calculator I'd used, and how, for which value - auditability and transparency is vital for SROI.  So here's a spreadsheet to do this properly!