The priority-setting exercise: an instrument for training in health care resource allocation

Abstract

Overt rationing and priority setting in the post-1990 NHS are widely accepted as inevitable. Although surveys reveal that a wide variety of opinions on priorities exist, health care professionals, both clinical and managerial, are likely to have had little experience of establishing priority rankings in practice. We describe a simple priority-setting exercise which we have conducted with subjects from a variety of backgrounds, designed to expose participants to some of the fundamental issues involved in identifying health care priorities.