Evidence map›Paper›PMID 22520680›Full record

ArticleThe British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners2012

Association between primary care organisation population size and quality of commissioning in England: an observational study.

Felix Greaves, Christopher Millett, Utz J Pape, Michael Soljak, Azeem Majeed

Open access · bronzeAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact, top 85% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 11 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.

Felix GreavesDepartment of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College London, London. felix.greaves08@imperial.ac.uk
Christopher Millett
Utz J Pape
Michael Soljak
Azeem Majeed
Imperial College London · GB

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundThe ideal population size of healthcare commissioning organisations is not known.

aimTo investigate whether there is a relationship between the size of commissioning organisations and how well they perform on a range of performance measures. DESIGN AND

settingCross-sectional, observational study of performance in all 152 primary care trusts (PCTs) in England.

methodComparison of PCT size against 36 indicators of commissioning performance, including measures of clinical and preventative effectiveness, patient centredness, access, cost, financial ability, and engagement.

resultsFourteen of the 36 indicators have an unadjusted relationship (P<0.05) with size of the PCT. With 10 indicators, there was increasing quality with larger size. However, when population factors including deprivation, ethnicity, rurality, and age were included in the analysis, there was no relationship between size and performance for any measure.

conclusionThere is no evidence to suggest that there is an optimum size for PCT performance. Observed variations in PCT performance with size were explained by the characteristics of the populations they served. These findings suggest that configuration of clinical commissioning groups should be geared towards producing organisations that can function effectively across their key responsibilities, rather than being based on the size of their population alone.

Indexed as

Population DensityQuality Indicators, Health CareCross-Sectional StudiesEfficiency, OrganizationalEnglandHumansPrimary Health CareState Medicine

Identifiers

PMID22520680
PMCPMC3252539
OpenAlexW1966810305

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.