Table 4.

Mean (SD) costs (£) per patient for use of all NHS services by group

Service	Clinic group	Home group	P value for permutation test
Leg ulcer treatment/year	804.03 (535.92)	681.04 (391.70)	0.05
GP services/year	18.33 (67.14)	29.82 (102.62)	0.31
Hospital services/year	55.24 (319.71)	152.22 (680.96)	0.17
Total costs	877.60 (674.30)	863.09 (865.32)	0.90
Total costs (with increased overheads for home visits)*	877.60	913.89
Total costs (with other treatments excluded from home visits costs)†	877.60	788.17
Total costs (with 10% increase in home visit costs)‡	877.60	931.19
Total costs (with 10% reduction in home visit costs)‡	877.60	794.98
Total costs (with 10% increase in clinic attendance costs)‡	958.00	863.09
Total costs (with 10% reduction in clinic attendance costs)‡	797.20	863.09

^*In baseline analysis no overheads were attributable to home visits as new working practices meant they were expected to be small. Overheads from other work,¹⁸ believed to be much greater than for nurses in this study, were used to estimate costs.  

^†Other treatments are sometimes given within home visits. To estimate cost of this work non-treatment time was excluded from home treatment costs.  

^‡Mean cost estimates for home and clinic visits may be systematically biased because of missing data. Possible effects of any bias investigated by adjustment of visit costs by +/−10%.