A situation in which someone's access to health services or medical treatment is determined by the area of the country in which they live.
〈英〉（医疗服务的）地域性差异
Example sentencesExamples
They called on the Government to make the care of allergy sufferers a full part of the NHS, rather than a postcode lottery.
Once a beneficial test has been licensed the challenge is to avoid a postcode lottery in its use.
The parking needs of people with disabilities must not be decided by what is effectively a postcode lottery.
Patients will always face a postcode lottery for NHS treatment, a Bolton MP claimed.
Stronger local accountability can be a powerful antidote to the postcode lottery.
There will also be a drive to eliminate the postcode lottery across the country on the cancer fighting drugs approved by Nice.
This has led to a postcode lottery over how long couples must wait.
The postcode lottery of eligibility criteria needs seriously to be examined.
Couples desperate for children are facing a postcode lottery for fertility treatment in Yorkshire despite new rules about free NHS treatment for all.
The announcement is the latest part of a government drive to end postcode lotteries of care across the NHS.
The postcode lottery through which people in different council areas pay widely varying costs for their social service support is to be ended.
Bereaved parents in Yorkshire face a postcode lottery in standards of investigations into the tragic deaths of their children, experts admitted yesterday.
Critics say the changes won't make all that much difference to what is a grossly unjust postcode lottery.
It means there will be a postcode lottery in the prescribing of Herceptin for early-stage breast cancer.
Teenage mums say Swindon fares well in the postcode lottery that dictates whether girls who fall pregnant receive a decent education.
Then you play the postcode lottery for treatment.
Cancer patients in the region are facing a huge postcode lottery for life-saving treatment, the Yorkshire Post can reveal today.
We want local control yet no postcode lottery.
The postcode lottery is particularly pronounced in the health service.
New figures reveal a postcode lottery is governing police responses to 999 calls with Sutton emerging below the London average.