Lady Greengross, the former Age Concern director, asked an interesting question in the Lords; it resulted in a fascinating table: I have not reprduced the whole thing, but to show what it contains, I give the results for the five PCTs covered by St Christopher’s and for comparison the PCT with the highest proportion of people receiving continuing care funding.

Number receiving National Health Service continuing care in total and per 50,000 population, England Quarter 4, 2008-09

I was a bit surprised by this; I thought it would reflect the proportion of older people in the population, but I don;t think of Shropshire as particularly full of older people and I do think of Soutwark as particularly derpived, but they may not have the high proportion of older people that leads to a lot of use of continuing care. The next two biggest proportions of people getting continuing care are Bournemouth and Bexley. Readers might be interested to see what they think. Is this another sign of variable decision-making?

On the web: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldhansrd/text/91103w0003.htm#091103121000828