Socioeconomic status does not always reflect health

EDITOR,—The first briefing document from the BMA's Health Policy and Economic Research Unit “flags up” some issues for a revised resource allocation formula, recommending that it should include “a component for the impact of deprivation on health” and that “a deprivation measure must be added to ensure that inner city areas … do not lose out against more affluent retirement areas” (unpublished paper). I had not expected to read such old fashioned socialist dogma, presented without evidence or justification, in a publication of …