Journal of Public Health 26(1) © Faculty of Public Health 2004; all rights reserved.
How representative is the population covered by the RCGP spotter practice scheme? Using Geographical Information Systems to assess
S. E. Harcourt, Senior Information Scientist1
D. E. Edwards, GIS Manager2
D. M. Fleming, Director3
R. L. Smith, Associate Director2
G. E. Smith, Consultant Epidemiologist1
1 Health Protection Agency West Midlands, Regional Surveillance Unit, 2nd Floor, Lincoln House, Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, Bordesley Green East, Birmingham B9 5SS
2 The West Midlands Health GIS Service, West Midlands Cancer Intelligence Unit, Public Health Building, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT
3 The Royal College of General Practitioners Birmingham Research Unit, 54 Lordswood Road, Harborne, Birmingham B17 9DB
Address correspondence to S. E. Harcourt. E-mail: sally.harcourt{at}hpa.org.uk
Background The Royal College of General Practitioners Weekly Returns Service (WRS) is a network of sentinel general practices providing weekly data on illnesses diagnosed in general practice across England and Wales. The WRS contributes to the surveillance of infectious disease, most notably influenza. We use Geographical Information Systems (GIS) techniques to establish whether the practice populations of the current WRS are representative of the general population.
Methods This study compares the practice population with the general population using the Department of the Environment, Transport and Regions (DETR) Indices of Deprivation 2000 scores for English wards.
Results Comparisons at the national level reveal that the WRS population is less deprived than the general population. At a supra-regional level the WRS practice population shows the same North–South differences as the national population, but the proportions of patients in the more deprived and least deprived wards are more exaggerated in the WRS population. A supplementary analysis reveals that the WRS has no patients in the most deprived wards of London.
Conclusion The differences have implications for the future recruitment of practices to the WRS. Previous studies have demonstrated the effect of socio-economic deprivation on GP consultation rates. To ensure that the consultation rates reported by the WRS will better reflect consulting patterns in the general population the WRS will need to recruit practices with patients in the most deprived areas of the South and less deprived areas in the North of England. This study demonstrates the value of GIS in the establishment of surveillance systems.
Keywords: surveillance, Geographical Information Systems, socio-economic deprivation, sentinel practices