Blackpool report: why do England’s deprived areas have the most troubled hospitals? | NHS
The report’s findings on Blackpool Victoria hospital are as shocking as they are damning: A culture of bullying, racial discrimination and harassment contributed to staff exodus, with a direct impact on patients. Treatment of chronic diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, were just some of the areas impacted by a toxic culture.
But the Royal College of Physicians report, leaked to the Guardian, reveals much wider challenges for the NHS, particularly for hospitals in Britain’s poorest corners.
Clinicians in places like Blackpool are overwhelmed by generational health problems and deep-seated poverty, a deepening crisis in many parts of the country. Their responsiveness is often hampered by efforts to attract the best staff.
The issues are complex. Hospitals in poorer areas are overflowing with people suffering from chronic health problems, including high rates of depression, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and other respiratory conditions worsened by living in damp homes.
The worst-performing NHS trusts in the league table broadly match their levels of deprivation.
Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust were among the 10 worst performing trusts, while Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust was ranked 11th from the bottom.
In the 2025 multiple deprivation indices, seven neighborhoods in Blackpool were among the top 10 most deprived neighborhoods in England, while Kingston upon Hull and Birmingham were among the local authorities with the highest proportions of neighborhoods among the most deprived neighborhoods in England.
The problem is exacerbated by inequities in primary care. The current formula for distributing GP funding, known as the Carr-Hill formula, uses the expected workload of GP practices to determine the distribution of funding, but is based on outdated figures, leaving people in poor areas and coastal towns with the fewest GPs available.
A. to work A study by the Royal College of General Practitioners last year found that GPs in deprived areas were responsible for an average of 2,450 patients each; This figure is 300 more than in richer parts of England. When patients struggle to get a GP appointment, they often go to A&E.
“People who have choices and are affluent want to live in affluent areas, so they won’t necessarily choose to move to needy areas,” one NHS executive said.
Another, from north-west England, said poverty had a “tremendous impact” on the quality of healthcare: “We can’t attract GPs to our population, we have too many home-grown GPs so we’re quite understaffed per capita, which can lead to health problems.” [patient] access and other things.”
Researchers from Lancaster University also found that hospital facilities and resources, geographic location and reputation play a role in the recruitment and retention of paramedics.
Last year the UKFPO (United Kingdom Foundations Programme) introduced a new system for the allocation of newly qualified doctors, previously based on academic achievement and further education.
Under the new system, applicants are instead given a random number that is used to determine where they will spend the first two years of their medical careers. With increasing demand for top hospitals and hospitals in major cities, the new system, although not without its critics, made it more likely that the brightest and best new doctors would never go to the worst-performing hospitals.
There is also a revenue stream issue; Research published in BMJ found that hospitals serving poorer populations had difficulty generating private revenue.
Researchers found “unequal distribution” of income from private patients and charitable donations across NHS trusts, which was linked to levels of deprivation.
Health secretary Wes Streeting is spearheading what he calls the biggest NHS transformation plan in a generation, with the aim of moving care from struggling hospitals to communities and from treatment to prevention.
But the difficulty is quite great. Britain has the lowest life expectancy in Western Europe and one of the highest figures among rich countries for preventable deaths. NHS bodies in the regions have been ordered to cut their budgets by half, cutting up to 13,500 jobs; This left senior officials alarmed at how this conflicted with Streeting’s focus on community care.
An NHS manager, who asked not to be named, welcomed the government’s “real focus” on tackling health inequalities but said questions remained about whether poorer parts of the country would see more funding. Another described the cuts as “draconian”.
