Abstract

KIE: In 1976, the Resource Allocation Working Party (RAWP) of Britain's Department of Health and Social Security issued a report and recommendations on the distribution of resources within the National Health Service (NHS). Ten years later, the NHS's management board is undertaking a review and modernization of RAWP's recommendations. Holland acknowledges that the goal of equal opportunity of access to health care has almost been achieved at the regional level. He also identifies several persistent problems of resource allocation within the NHS that need to be addressed in the management board's review. Among these are a paucity of data, a disproportionate allocation of funds to Northern Ireland and Scotland at the expense of England and Wales, uneven provision of services among health districts, problems with funding medical education, fragmentation of health services, and underutilization of services by the socially deprived.