Variations in health care: The good, the bad and the inexplicable

As this report illustrates with reference to differences in admission rates for many routine surgical procedures, variations in health care are not limited to relatively rare or new interventions. Nor are such variations a new phenomenon or simply concerned with the efficient use of scarce health service resources. 

The existence of persistent unwarranted variations in health care directly impacts on equity of access to services, the health outcomes of populations and efficient use of resources. 

This report analyse this issue in the UK's NHS.