Sensitivity per-protocol analysis of Hospital Episode Statistics data

This appendix presents findings from the sensitivity analysis for the secondary care data, restricting the analysis to practices that we believed, on the basis of information provided by the commercial companies, were running the ‘telephone first’approach consistent with the companies’ protocols. The sensitivity analysis followed the same methods as those reported in the main analysis (see Chapter 7 and Appendix 8). The results are very similar to those presented in the main report, with no evidence of a step change in A&E and outpatient attendances, but evidence of a slower increase over time in intervention practices than in the background trend. We also find evidence of step increases in inpatient admissions.