Dudley Strategy for Tackling Health Inequalities 2010-15

Performance variation cannot be explained by deprivation for Dudley, as there wasno association found between practice deprivation level and either blood pressurerecording or control for any of the vascular disease/ condition registers, whichreflects the national picture. (Craig.and Mindell, 2008).There are a number of practices that consistently appear below average inperformance. Differences may be due to poor data recording, a need to improvedisease register management i.e. patients not invited for annual reviews or high nonattendancerates, poor prescribing regimens and low levels of lifestyle referrals, orthey may be due to poor patient compliance with drug or lifestyle therapies. Theseare important areas to concentrate on in order for the PCT to have an impact onreducing health inequalities in the borough.Cholesterol Management for Vascular Diseases in Primary CareThere is high variation in performance between practices for both the recording andcontrol of cholesterol across the vascular disease/ condition registers - CHD, stroke,and diabetes. The range of performance gaps are detailed in Table 3.Table 3: Range of performance gapDisease/condition registerQOF Clinical IndicatorPerformancegap rangeDudleyaverageCHD7 cholesterol record