Professor Carol Propper of the Centre for Market and Public Organisation (CMPO) and colleagues, writing in the summer issue of Research in Public Policy, explain that the new 'choose and book' system - whereby all patients can choose any provider of hospital care by 2008 - will exacerbate class differences.

In affluent areas, these people will travel around 40km for their elective care; the comparable distance for those who live in the most deprived areas is below 20km.

One possible explanation is that the middle classes are more likely to get their GPs to refer them to more reputable hospitals and some of these are located further away than those GPs normally choose for their patients. Another possible explanation is that poorer people are offered care outside their local areas, but have to turn it down because they cannot afford the travel costs.

The distances travelled by people are quite long. The average distance travelled for elective care is just over 17km and only slightly less for emergency care.

 http://www.news-medical.net/?id=28182