Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the reasons for the variation in elective surgery rates among the most affluent and least affluent areas of England recorded in the recent survey by the Health Service Journal.

NHS England has advised it is aware of the findings of the survey.

The NHS Atlas of Variation in Healthcare, published in September 2015 by Public Health England, NHS England and NHS Right Care, aims to identify unwarranted variation, and the causes of variation, in the provision of health services. Linked to this, the NHS Right Care programme will advise local health systems on variation in elective surgery intervention rates and support them to look at reasons for this and identify any changes needed.

The NHS Atlas of Variation in Healthcare is too large to attach to this reply, but can be found online at the following:

http://www.rightcare.nhs.uk/atlas/RC_nhsAtlas3_HIGH_150915.pdf