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Economic aspects of health services
256
Books
The right prescription
for the health service
Gavin W. Mooney Economic Services A. J. Culyer
Aspects
of
and K. G. Wright,
190 pages, ic;s% son, 1978).
(London,
Martin
Health eds Robert-
At a time when the Royal Commission on the UK National Health Service (NHS) is deliberating on the mountain of evidence-inevitably partisan-presented to it, it is refreshing to read this set of essays by a group of health economists at the University of York. It is tempting to say that the collection is not about health service policy, in that no recommendations are made about what the health service should or should not do. But perhaps in the most important sense of all it is about policy, in that the readings substantiate the claim in the preface that the authors intend to show how economics “can shed light on some key questions about the National Health Service, and thereby help people to make up their minds about some of the great issues that confront us”. While the attempt to avoid technical terms is not wholly successful, anyone seeking an understanding of some of the problems confronting the NHS, and how these might be tackled, will find the book invaluable. There is a certain unevenness of presentation, perhaps inevitable in any set of readings, but it is generally lucid and tightly argued. It is wide-ranging, covering such quasi-philosophical questions as the definitions of “need” and the relevance of value judgements, to the more downto-earth issues of measuring output in services for the elderly, morale in the NHS and the effect of prices on the demand for health care. But its main strength lies in bringing out the potenGavin H. Mooney is Director of the Health Economics Research Unit at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.
tial of economics to assist planning in the NHS. For it remains true that too often in so-called health service planning, there is an unwillingness to accept that resources are limited and choices have to be made between competing claims, to ensure the best use of what resources are available. That overworked word “need” gets a lot of airing but to good purpose, since its pervasion of health service deliberations often results in misleading and on occasion erroneous conclusions. As Williams points out in one of the readings, it is the policy makers in the NHS who so often “are the target of much of the confused and pejorative language of ‘need’, and are frequently poorly equipped to resist it in a constructively discriminating manner”. Much of the equipment for such resistance lies in the pages of this set of readings.
Focus on popular images Eleonora Masini Images
of the World
in the Year
2000
H. Ornauer, H. Wiberg, and A. Sicinski, eds
J.
Galtung,
729 pages, IFI 115 (The Hague, Mouton; Jersey, Humanities Press, 1976)
New
What do people expect and hope for in the future? These questions have often been discussed by futurists; but Images of tiia World in the Tear 2000, the result of a survey of IO 000 men and women “in the street” aged between 15 and 40, actually provides some (well, actually 1.8 million) answers. And comprehensive answers at that: the geographical Ekonora Masini is Secretary general of the World Future Studies Federation, Casella Postale 6203, Rome-Prati, Italy.
FUTURES
June tS78
Books
The right prescription
for the health service
Gavin W. Mooney Economic Services A. J. Culyer
Aspects
of
and K. G. Wright,
190 pages, ic;s% son, 1978).
(London,
Martin
Health eds Robert-
At a time when the Royal Commission on the UK National Health Service (NHS) is deliberating on the mountain of evidence-inevitably partisan-presented to it, it is refreshing to read this set of essays by a group of health economists at the University of York. It is tempting to say that the collection is not about health service policy, in that no recommendations are made about what the health service should or should not do. But perhaps in the most important sense of all it is about policy, in that the readings substantiate the claim in the preface that the authors intend to show how economics “can shed light on some key questions about the National Health Service, and thereby help people to make up their minds about some of the great issues that confront us”. While the attempt to avoid technical terms is not wholly successful, anyone seeking an understanding of some of the problems confronting the NHS, and how these might be tackled, will find the book invaluable. There is a certain unevenness of presentation, perhaps inevitable in any set of readings, but it is generally lucid and tightly argued. It is wide-ranging, covering such quasi-philosophical questions as the definitions of “need” and the relevance of value judgements, to the more downto-earth issues of measuring output in services for the elderly, morale in the NHS and the effect of prices on the demand for health care. But its main strength lies in bringing out the potenGavin H. Mooney is Director of the Health Economics Research Unit at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.
tial of economics to assist planning in the NHS. For it remains true that too often in so-called health service planning, there is an unwillingness to accept that resources are limited and choices have to be made between competing claims, to ensure the best use of what resources are available. That overworked word “need” gets a lot of airing but to good purpose, since its pervasion of health service deliberations often results in misleading and on occasion erroneous conclusions. As Williams points out in one of the readings, it is the policy makers in the NHS who so often “are the target of much of the confused and pejorative language of ‘need’, and are frequently poorly equipped to resist it in a constructively discriminating manner”. Much of the equipment for such resistance lies in the pages of this set of readings.
Focus on popular images Eleonora Masini Images
of the World
in the Year
2000
H. Ornauer, H. Wiberg, and A. Sicinski, eds
J.
Galtung,
729 pages, IFI 115 (The Hague, Mouton; Jersey, Humanities Press, 1976)
New
What do people expect and hope for in the future? These questions have often been discussed by futurists; but Images of tiia World in the Tear 2000, the result of a survey of IO 000 men and women “in the street” aged between 15 and 40, actually provides some (well, actually 1.8 million) answers. And comprehensive answers at that: the geographical Ekonora Masini is Secretary general of the World Future Studies Federation, Casella Postale 6203, Rome-Prati, Italy.
FUTURES
June tS78