BetaEntity Annotation Prototype
← Back to diseases

Annotated abstract

FP18 Community outreach hepatology clinics: addressing health inequalities in liver disease

gutjnl · 2026-06-23 · canonical JSON source

3 visible annotations · policy: published · automated confidence ≥ 75.00%

Document resource

Introduction Liver disease disproportionately affects more deprived populations facing challenges to attending and accessing secondary care hospital appointments. Within NHS Northumbria Healthcare Foundation Trust, we evaluated novel innovative community hepatology clinics established in high-deprivation areas of our Trust, Blyth and Wallsend, on their ability to reach socioeconomically deprived populations and improve their attendance compared to standard hospital clinics.Methods We conducted a retrospective descriptive analysis of 3220 hepatology appointments for patients across two novel clinics and two standard hospital clinics. The community clinics were Blyth (268 appointments across 23 clinics, March 2024 to January 2026), and Wallsend (89 appointments across 12 clinics, September 2024 to December 2025). These were compared to hospital clinics at North Tyneside General Hospital NTGH (1467 appointments across 109 clinics) and Wansbeck General Hospital (1396 appointments across 114 clinics) from November 2023 to January 2026. The primary outcome was non-attendance (DNA) rates stratified by Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) 2019 decile and the appointment type (new versus follow-up).Results Community clinics reached significantly more deprived populations: 70% of patients resided in IMD deciles 1-4 (most deprived) versus 56% at hospital sites. When stratified by deprivation, the Blyth clinic achieved lower DNA for IMD 1-4 patients (16.3%) than NTGH (19.7%) and comparable rates to WGH (15.4%). The greatest relative benefit at Blyth was observed for new appointments amongst IMD 1-4 patients, with a DNA rate of 18.2% versus 28.9% at NTGH and 20.9% at WGH. The newer Wallsend clinic had higher DNA for IMD 1-4 patients (25.9%) than hospital clinics, this difference persisted for new appointments (28.8%), likely reflecting early service implementation with a high proportion of new appointments (89%) and limited follow-up data (6 appointments).Conclusions Community hepatology clinics engage more deprived populations, with the Blyth clinic achieving lower DNA rates than equivalently deprived hospital attenders, particularly for new appointments. The newer Wallsend clinic requires further evaluation. Ongoing analysis is evaluating the impact upon clinical outcomes, specifically disease severity using Fibroscan results.Abstract FP18 Table 1DNA rates by setting, deprivation and appointment typeClinicIMDAppointmentsDNANewF/UBlyth1-419016.3%18.2%15.3%Blyth5-10773.9%6.5%2.2%Wallsend1-45825.9%28.8%0%Wallsend5-103020.0%19.2%25.0%NTGH1-479819.7%28.9%15.0%NTGH5-106608.2%12.1%6.7%WGH1-479015.4%20.9%12.1%WGH5-1060210.6%13.3%8.9%