The United Kingdom has in many respects the archetypal centrally planned, publicly financed health care system in the form of National Health Service (NHS), established in 1948 in a time of great austerity after Second World War. It is largely funded from general taxation, and provides wide...

Empirical evidence has hitherto been inconclusive about the strength of the link between health care spending and health outcomes. This paper uses programme budgeting data prepared by 295 English Primary Care Trusts to model the link for two specific programmes of care: cancer and circulatory...

Traditionally, most health care systems which pretend to any sort of rationality and cost control have sought to allocate their limited funds in order to secure equal opportunity of access for equal need. The UK government is implementing a fundamental change of resource allocation philosophy...