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- Page navigation anchor for Impact of primary care funding on secondary care utilisation and patient outcomes: a retrospective cross-sectional study of English general practiceImpact of primary care funding on secondary care utilisation and patient outcomes: a retrospective cross-sectional study of English general practiceDr L’Esperance et al1 have produced a very interesting paper that examines important issues. Unfortunately, their reference to our findings2 in their comparison with existing literature subsection is incorrect. We found no correlation between total adjusted practice payments and IMD scores in England. In a linear regression, higher payments were associated with increases in IMD scores, patients of older age, African-Caribbean ethnic group, and asthma prevalence, but all with tiny effect sizes.Our message was that population factors related to health needs were, overall, poor predictors of variations in adjusted total practice payments and in the payment component designed to compensate for workload.References1. L'Esperance V, Sutton M, Schofield P, et al. Impact of primary care funding on secondary care utilisation and patient outcomes: a retrospective cross-sectional study of English general practice. Br J Gen Pract 2017; 67(664):e792-e799.2. Levene L, Baker R, Wilson A, et al. Population health needs as predictors of variations in NHS practice payments: a cross-sectional study of English general practices in 2013–2014 and 2014–2015. Br J Gen Pract 2017; 67(654): e10–e19.Competing Interests: None declared.