Numbers of hospital doctors and GPs affect inpatient mortality

In Britain, where the NHS covers almost the whole population, there is a wealth of detailed information regarding hospital admissions, enabling the influence of different factors to be teased out. The analysis by Jarman et al (p 1515) of eight million admissions over four years looked at which factors best explain variation in hospital death rates in England. The study found that the ratios of doctors per hospital bed and general practitioners per head of population were powerful predictors of hospital death ratesthe higher these doctor ratios, the lower the death rates. Among Western nations the UK has a low number of doctors per head, and the authors conclude that the government's intention to increase medical school numbers is welcome.

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Explaining differences in English hospital death rates using routinely collected data

Brian Jarman, Simon Gault, Bernadette Alves, Amy Hider, Susan Dolan, Adrian Cook, Brian Hurwitz, and Lisa I Iezzoni
BMJ 1999 318: 1515-1520. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]