Rationing and rationality in the National Health Service

Stephen Frankel, West, Robert

Analysis of the ways in which current means of rationing UK health care produce the least desirable outcome: the restriction of access to some of the most cost-effective treatments. The inevitability of rationing by waiting lists is questioned and described as an expression of the irrationality of a system that tolerates an excessive restriction of access to some of the few treatments which are both highly effective and relatively cheap.