Objective To explore how primary care organizations assess and subsequently act upon the social determinants of noncommunicable diseases in their local populations. Methods For this systematic review we searched the online databases of PubMed®, MEDLINE®, Embase® and the Health Management Information Consortium from inception to 28 June 2019, along with hand-searching of references. Studies of any design that examined a primary care organization assessing social determinants of noncommunicable diseases were included. For quality assessment we used Cochrane’s tool for assessing risk of bias in non-randomized studies of interventions. We used narrative data synthesis to appraise the extent to which the assessments gathered data on the domains of the World Health Organization social determinants of health framework. Findings We identified 666 studies of which 17 were included in the review. All studies used descriptive study designs. Clinic-based and household surveys and interviews were more commonly used to assess local social determinants than population-level data. We found no examples of organizations that assessed sociopolitical drivers of noncommunicable diseases; all focused on sociodemographic factors or circumstances of daily living. Nevertheless, the resulting actions to address social determinants ranged from individual-level interventions to population-wide measures and introducing representation of primary care organizations on system-level policy and planning committees. Conclusion Our findings may help policy-makers to consider suitable approaches for assessing and addressing social determinants of health in their domestic context. More rigorous observational and experimental evidence is needed to ascertain whether measuring social determinants leads to interventions which mitigate unmet social needs and reduce health disparities.

The United Kingdom achieved interrupted endemic measles transmission for 36 months in 2016. Despite this, ongoing challenges from sporadic measles cases typically imported from abroad remain. We summarise a B3 measles genotype outbreak in south-east Wales occurring between May and September 2017, linked with other European outbreaks, and lessons learnt. Seventeen confirmed cases and one probable case occurred principally in education and healthcare-settings. Six confirmed cases attended healthcare settings when infectious, without being isolated.

BackgroundHealth investment in England post-2010 has increased at lower rates than previously, with proportionally less being allocated to deprived areas. This study seeks to explore the impact of this on inequalities in amenable mortality between local areas.MethodsWe undertook a time-series analysis across 324 lower-tier local authorities in England, evaluating the impact of changes in funding allocations to health commissioners from 2007 to 2014 on spatial inequalities in age-standardised under-75 mortality rates for conditions amenable to healthcare for men and women, adjusting for trends in household income, unemployment and time-trends.ResultsMore deprived areas received proportionally more funding between 2007 and 2014, though the reorganisation of commissioning in 2012 stalled this. Funding increases to more deprived local areas accounted for a statistically significant reduction in inequalities in male amenable mortality between local areas of 13 deaths per 100 000 (95% CI 2.5 to 25.9). Funding changes were associated with a reduction in inequalities in female amenable mortality of 7.0 per 100,000, though this finding did not reach significance (p=0.09).ConclusionCurrent National Health Service (NHS) resource allocation policy in England appears to be contributing to a convergence in health outcomes between affluent and deprived areas. However, careful surveillance is needed to evaluate whether diminished allocations to more deprived areas in recent years and reduced NHS investment as a whole is impacting adversely on inequalities between groups.

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ObjectiveTo compare National Health Service (NHS) organisations’ testing pathways for patients with suspected COVID-19 in the community versus standard hospital testing practices.PerspectiveNHS commissioners and services.MethodsDuring the containment phase of the COVID-19 pandemic we developed a community model pathway for COVID-19 testing in Wales with testing teams undertaking swabbing for COVID-19 in individuals’ usual place of residence. We undertook a cost-minimisation analysis comparing the costs to the NHS in Wales of community testing for COVID-19 versus standard hospital testing practices and ambulance conveyancing. We analysed data from patients with suspected COVID-19 between January and February 2020 and applied assumptions of costs from national contractual and reference costs for ambulances, staffing and transportation with market costs at the time of publication.Results177 patients with suspected COVID-19 underwent community testing via local NHS organisations between January and February 2020 with a mean age of 46.1 (IQR 27.5–56.3). This was 92% of total patients who were tested for COVID-19 during this period. We estimate, compared with standard hospital testing practices, cash savings in improved productivity for the NHS of £24,539 during this time period, in addition to further non-monetised benefits for hospital and ambulance flow.ConclusionsCommunity testing for COVID-19 in Wales is now an established pathway and continues to bring benefits for patients, local healthcare organisations and the NHS. Further application of this model in other settings and to other infectious diseases may herald promising returns.