Access to Primary Care Services in Lancashire
2006
July 2007
Introduction
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) makes available a range of point location data provided by the Information Centre for Health and Social Care related to primary care services in England. These datasets are intended as a starting point for the development of more detailed information intended to increase understanding of the provision and accessibility of health services in an area.
The published data is available from the Neighbourhood Statistics website under the Access to Services topic domain. Lancashire specific data may be obtained directly from the Lancashire Profile Data Download Centre. The information relates to the point location of all General Practice surgeries, NHS dental surgeries (main site and branch surgeries) within practices, pharmacies (providing NHS dispensing and prescription services) and opticians (ophthalmic establishments) in England, which were operating in December 2006.
It should be noted that the dataset covers static point locations of premises and at this particular date only. Other health services such as those offered by mobile health professionals, NHS 'Walk In' centres and home units, pharmacies in hospitals, private dental services (only) and details of dispensing GP surgeries are not covered. The datasets therefore give a partial indication of the geographical spread of primary care health services.
The following maps, Figures 1 to 4 showing the general distribution of each of the four primary care services across the Lancashire sub-region are illustrative of the data. Figure 5 showing the distribution of these services across one district (Lancaster) provides an example of the use of the data at this much lower geographical level.
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