Health needs in a London district.

The hospital admission rate in Inner London is higher than for the country as a whole. This could be because more beds are available or because the local population has special needs. This paper considers admission rates by electoral wards within one Inner London District. The paper shows that the high admission rates are characteristic of electoral wards which exhibit severe social deprivation and that the more affluent wards do not have high hospitalization rates despite the fact that residents of all electoral wards have equal access to hospital. Our conclusion is that the high hospitalization rates in Inner London are at least in part due to social deprivation and that any allocation of health resources needs to make adequate and additional provision for the health needs of communities which are socially deprived.