What is it about?
The UK National Health Service experienced huge demand in the winter of 2016/17. This was further exacerbated by higher bed blocking due to cuts to social care budgets. However, the basic driver for marginal changes in demand appears to be marginal changes in deaths. Deaths are linked to demand via the fact that up to 55% of a person's lifetime acute utilization occurs in the last year of life. After a high year in 2016/17, demand is set to decline in 2017/18, however, this may depend on the outcome of how seasonal influenza in early 2017 interacts with human health.
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Why is it important?
Up to the present, the trends in healthcare demand have been assumed to depend on demographic trends, i.e. the ageing population. However, this fails to explain curious undulations in demand which coincide with periods of higher than expected death.
Perspectives
This is part of a longer series of research articles investigating why health care demand appears to behave in a non-standard way, see http://www.hcaf.biz/2010/Publications_Full.pdf for the full series
Dr Rodney P Jones
Healthcare Analysis & Forecasting
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Anticipated NHS demand in 2017/18, Journal of Paramedic Practice, June 2017, Mark Allen Group,
DOI: 10.12968/jpar.2017.9.6.236.
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