This paper Keep it simple? Predicting primary health care costs with measures of morbidity and multimorbidity, published by the Centre for Health Economics at the University of York, investigates the relationship between patients’ primary care costs (consultations, tests and drugs) and their age, gender, deprivation and alternative measures of their morbidity and multimorbidity.

This information is required to set budgets for general practices to cover their expenditure on providing primary care services. It is also useful to examine whether practices’ expenditure decisions vary equitably with patient characteristics.

The study compared the ability of eight measures of patient morbidity and multimorbidity to predict f uture primary care costs using data on 86,100 individuals in 174 English practices. The measures were derived from four morbidity descriptive systems (17 chronic diseases in the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), 17 chronic diseases in the Charlson scheme, 114 Expanded Diagnosis Clusters and 68 Adjusted Clinical Groups.

Brilleman, S.L., Gravelle, H. and Hollinghurst, S. et al (2011). Keep it simple? Predicting primary health care costs with measures of morbidity and multimorbidity. CHE Research Paper 72. York: Centre for Health Economics, University of York, December 2011.