Socioeconomic inequality and access to emergency care: understanding the pathways to the emergency department in the UK.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To examine how socioeconomic deprivation influences referral pathways to emergency departments (EDs) and to assess how these pathways affect subsequent hospital outcomes.

Design

Retrospective observational study.

Setting

Emergency department of a large teaching hospital in the East of England, providing secondary and tertiary care.

Participants

482 787 ED attendances by patients aged 16 years and over, recorded between January 2019 and December 2023. Patients were assigned Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) deciles based on residential postcode.

Main outcome measures

Referral source (general practitioner (GP), National Health Service (NHS) 111, ambulance, self-referral, other), total ED time, 4-hour breach, hospital admission and unplanned ret

SUBMITTER: Madia J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12706212 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature