Does Council Tax Valuation Band (CTVB) correlate with Under-Privileged Area 8 (UPA8) score and could it be a better 'Jarman Index'?
BACKGROUND
Widespread scepticism persists on the use of the Under-Privileged Area (UPA8) score of Jarman in distributing supplementary resources to so-attributed 'deprived' UK general practices. The search for better 'needs' markers continues. Having already shown that Council Tax Valuation Band (CTVB) is a predictor of UK GP workload, we compare, here, CTVB of residence of a random sample of patients with their respective 'Jarman' scores.


METHODS
Correlation coefficient is calculated between (i) the CTVB of residence of a randomised sample of patients from an English general practice and (ii) the UPA8 scores of the relevant enumeration districts in which they live.


RESULTS
There is a highly significant correlation between the two measures despite modest study size of 478 patients (85% response).


CONCLUSIONS
The proposal that CTVB is a marker of deprivation and of clinical demand should be examined in more detail: it correlates with 'Jarman', which is already used in NHS resource allocation. But unlike 'Jarman', CTVB is simple, objective, and free of the problems of Census data. CTVB, being household-based, can be aggregated at will.
Beale
N
N
Northlands R & D General Practice, Calne, UK.
Taylor
G
G
Straker-Cook
D
D
D002391:Catchment Area, Health; D018672:Community Health Planning; D003467:Cultural Deprivation; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005194:Family Practice / Q000191:economics*; D015276:Health Care Rationing / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D011610:Psychosocial Deprivation; D012111:Residence Characteristics / Q000145:classification* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013222:State Medicine; D013660:Taxes / Q000145:classification*; D006113:United Kingdom; D035862:Vulnerable Populations / Q000145:classification*