New web tool to target health inequalities
- 24 August 2007
A new web-based tool designed to help primary care trusts to make better use of evidence-based measures to improve life expectancy in areas of below average health has been launched by the Department of Health.
The tool, jointly developed by the Association of Public Health Observatories (APHO), and the DH, has been designed specifically for use by spearhead areas covered by 66 PCTs where extra resources are being targeted to address ill-health and lower than average life expectancy rates.
Public health minister, Dawn Primarolo, launched the system and told EHI Primary Care: “The Health Inequalities Intervention Tool highlights the key issues that spearhead areas of England as a whole, and in some areas there are big differences. It is designed to assist PCTs with service planning and commissioning through their local delivery plans.
“Using the tool PCTs will be able to calculate the number of people they need to see to meet targets on high impact interventions, and link this with their exiting data to find patients who should be called in for a checkup, and encouraging them to present to their GPs and have a significant impact on their life expectancy.”
The tool is based on Microsoft Excel and uses macros to perform calculations to help provide PCTs with an idea of how they can increase their life expectancy rates to get up to the national average.
The DH says that between 2003 and 2005 3,700 fewer deaths would have occurred of people aged between 30-59 years old in spearhead areas, if life expectancy had been the same as in the rest of England.
Carole Furlong, director of London Health Observatory, a branch of APHO told EHIPC: “Using the Excel tool, PCTs can view tables and graphs to see for themselves the big gaps between patients in their regions and the national life expectancy. Each of the 66 PCTs can view their own figures, collated by the DH at the beginning of the year and use the calculator tool to work out how they can decrease the gap in figures so that they are meeting national targets.”
The overall aim of the tool is to help the spearhead areas meet the DH’s Health Inequalities Public Service Agreement PSA target that “by 2010 health inequalities will be reduced by 10%, as measured by infant mortality and life expectancy.”
Dr Bobbie Jacobson, vice-chair of the APHO, said: “Our tool is the first of its kind to provide hard-edged, local evidence to planners and commissioners, on the causes of their life expectancy gap and how it can be reduced. The tool is easy to use and saves local agencies time and analytical effort. More importantly, we hope it will help spearhead authorities to close the gap.”
The tool has been designed to provide indicators – ‘ready reckoners’ – for all high impact interventions including smoking cessation, reducing infant deaths, antihypertensive prescribing and statin prescribing.
Dr Jacobson added: “The tool includes finger print reckoners which help PCTs to understand basic questions like – what are we getting at the moment and what do we need to meet the targets. In turn then, commissioners can allocate funding to ensuring that GPs target people who meet characteristics presented in the best estimates the system gives.”
By inviting people in who could be under threat, GPs could also benefit from QoF points based on the patients they see and the checks they end up doing.
Primarolo added: “Spearhead sites are making progress, this tool will help to address outstanding points and bring them one step closer to achieving the national target by, if not before, 2010.
“Our task now is to support local NHS and local authority service planners, commissioners and front-line staff to deliver on those targets and this is an excellent example of giving staff in spearhead areas the tools to do the job and to do it well.”
If successful, the tool will be rolled out to all PCTs, though this will take time to collate all the information and add it to the existing information on the site.
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