Approaches to Health and Personal Social Services Planning in The National Health Service and the Place of Health Indices

In this paper, various approaches to the planning of health services have been outlined. Some of the limits of rationality in health planning have been discussed. It is highly unlikely that some of the issues raised in this paper could be resolved in the next two decades. It has, therefore, been argued that intermediate steps be taken to improve the process of planning. This paper is oriented to the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. However, the technical problems discussed in this paper can be viewed in the context of health service provision generally.