[skissane]

> And again, most of the metrics here (bed availability, for example) should not be geographically bound at all.

Is that true though? A less densely populated area would have a lower baseline number of hospital beds, which I'd expect would make it more sensitive to unexpected volatility in demand. Major hospitals often have empty wards which are kept available as contingencies for unexpected events such as terrorist attacks or natural disasters – I've seen one in person before, all these beds and medical equipment with the lights turned off gives me goosebumps for some reason – less major hospitals are less likely to have such facilities – but obviously they give hospital management greater leeway (at least in theory) to manage unexpected bursts in demand. And of course, less densely populated areas are likely to have fewer major hospitals and a greater number of minor ones. Similarly, larger hospitals have larger staffs, so greater likelihood they can ask extra staff to come in to meet unexpected demand bursts.

So, in the abstract, I would not be surprised if less densely populated areas of England had worse bed availability than more densely populated areas. And indeed, the least dense area of England, the South West, scored the worst in hospital bed availability in their analysis–as I would have expected.

I think that is a flaw in the methodology of this article, they display no evidence of having considered factors like that, or having attempted to control for them.