Searching published reports.

situation.The consumer is reasonably happy with it, it is politically acceptable, and it is probably more equitable.It does, however, mean that we must accept the inevitability of waiting lists as a method of rationing.Well managed waiting lists, for all their prob- lems, are a good method of rationing.They are explicit and can be regulated to ensure that they are equitable.Furthermore, they are reasonably acceptable to the public: far better to be on a waiting list than to be told that an operation on the NHS will never be done under any circumstances.Our view is that economic dogma has held sway for too long in health care.Yet when the hard decisions are being made in health authorities and health boards the dogmatists are nowhere to be seen.We should now formalise the social model of resource allocation along lines that have been suggested previously.'With this method economic appraisal is but one of the four variables-with government priorities, consumer opinion, and formal needs assessment -that determine resource allocation.We would thus ensure that the NHS was, as Smyth puts it, "an element of the national apparatus of justice."