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Abstract: This paper estimates the pattern of private and public physician visits and hospitalisation by socioeconomic position in two countries in which private healthcare expenditure constitutes a different proportion of the total amount spent on health care: Britain and Spain. Private physician visits and private hospitalisations were quantitatively more important in Spain than in Britain. In both countries, the use of private services showed a direct socioeconomic gradient. In Spain, the use of public GPs and public specialists tends to favour the worst-off, but no significant differences were observed in public hospitalisation. In Britain, with some exceptions, no significant socioeconomic differences were observed in the use of public health care services. The different pattern observed in the use of public specialist services may be due to the high frequency of visits to private specialists in Spain. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper aims to estimate the pattern of physician visits and hospitalisation by socioeconomic position in Great Britain and Spain before and after important changes in their health systems during the 1990s. These changes have been accompanied by a trend toward pro-rich inequality in physician use, especially in outpatient consultation in Great Britain, whereas the pro-poor inequality in GP consultation and the pro-rich inequality in specialist consultation in Spain before the changes have been maintained. Although the pro-rich inequality in hospitalisation observed in both countries before their health system changes continues to be seen, the differences have been reduced, suggesting a trend toward socioeconomic equality in hospitalisation. In any case, with the exception of visits to GP in Spain, in both countries greater use of health services by professionals and managers is observed than for the rest of the population. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]