Implications

• If Practice 31 achieved Practice 15’s referral rate it would mean 1,500 fewer referrals to hospital, saving £230k.

• Extended to every practice in the locality, this would mean 9,600 fewer referrals saving £1.5m

• Depending on the causes of the variation, some of this saving may need to be reinvested in primary care (GPwSIs, enhanced services, community nursing) to enable the rest of the locality to achieve practice 15’s referral rates.

Identifying undiagnosed patients?

• It is believed that 1 in 4 diabetics do not know they have the condition

• Nationally there are over a million people living with undiagnosed diabetes

• Can we use our health service information to identify areas with undiagnosed diabetes to inform health promotion interventions?

• QOF provides for the first time the count and prevalence of patients with a diagnosis for a range of long term conditions