Do waiting times matter in primary care? GP visits and list sizes in England

This paper is largely motivated by the empirical observation that GP visits per person under the NHS have increased in England since the mid-1970s, while list sizes have decreased over the same period A hypothesis consistent with this observation is that larger list sizes are associated with longer...

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Main Author: Polisson, M
Format: Working paper
Published: University of Oxford 2011
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author Polisson, M
author_facet Polisson, M
author_sort Polisson, M
collection OXFORD
description This paper is largely motivated by the empirical observation that GP visits per person under the NHS have increased in England since the mid-1970s, while list sizes have decreased over the same period A hypothesis consistent with this observation is that larger list sizes are associated with longer waiting times, which reduce the demand for GP visits. Using a time series of repeated cross sections from 1972 to 2004, we construct a pseudopanel of synthetic individuals and find very little evidence that list sizes affect visit frequencies. While there are mild associations consistent with the waiting-time hypothesis among working-age women, there are none for men or the elderly, and no associations are robust to the cohort analysis. The demand for GP visits is most likely driven by health status, and for women, childbirth.
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spelling oxford-uuid:cdac4a59-2a85-4f03-87eb-ec9f70c7994c2022-03-27T07:30:16ZDo waiting times matter in primary care? GP visits and list sizes in EnglandWorking paperhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_8042uuid:cdac4a59-2a85-4f03-87eb-ec9f70c7994cSymplectic ElementsBulk import via SwordUniversity of Oxford2011Polisson, MThis paper is largely motivated by the empirical observation that GP visits per person under the NHS have increased in England since the mid-1970s, while list sizes have decreased over the same period A hypothesis consistent with this observation is that larger list sizes are associated with longer waiting times, which reduce the demand for GP visits. Using a time series of repeated cross sections from 1972 to 2004, we construct a pseudopanel of synthetic individuals and find very little evidence that list sizes affect visit frequencies. While there are mild associations consistent with the waiting-time hypothesis among working-age women, there are none for men or the elderly, and no associations are robust to the cohort analysis. The demand for GP visits is most likely driven by health status, and for women, childbirth.
spellingShingle Polisson, M
Do waiting times matter in primary care? GP visits and list sizes in England
title Do waiting times matter in primary care? GP visits and list sizes in England
title_full Do waiting times matter in primary care? GP visits and list sizes in England
title_fullStr Do waiting times matter in primary care? GP visits and list sizes in England
title_full_unstemmed Do waiting times matter in primary care? GP visits and list sizes in England
title_short Do waiting times matter in primary care? GP visits and list sizes in England
title_sort do waiting times matter in primary care gp visits and list sizes in england
work_keys_str_mv AT polissonm dowaitingtimesmatterinprimarycaregpvisitsandlistsizesinengland