"If there were a war tomorrow, we'd find the money": contrasting perspectives on the rationing of health care.

In spite of the substantial academic effort being devoted to the subject of health care rationing, there is little clarity about the views of those working in health care who have to implement rationing nor about the views of citizens who are (potentially) affected by the rationing of care. This paper reports the findings of a study conducted using focus groups and semi-structured interviews to explore and compare beliefs about rationing among citizens and those with a role in the health service (service informants) within the context of health care provision in the UK. Citizen and service informants both identified external pressures on the resources available for health care including technological improvement, the ageing population and increasing public expectations.

'The public is too subjective': public involvement at different levels of health-care decision making.

There are a number of impulses towards public participation in health care decision making including instrumentalist, communitarian, educative and expressive impulses and the desire for increased accountability. There has, however, been little research looking systematically at the public's preferences for being involved in particular types of rationing decisions, nor indeed, has there been a critical examination of the degree of involvement desired by the public. The research reported here uses findings from focus groups and in-depth interviews to explore these questions.