What is a priority?

What does it mean to say that something is a 'priority'? Priority setting is used to balance competing claims for resources, but the nature of the exercise is ambiguous. The priorities which are claimed might be for time, resources, process, rights or service. The setting of priorities might refer to importance, relative value, precedence, special status or lexical ordering.

A population needs assessment profile for dementia.

The Tayside Profile for Dementia Planning is an instrument designed to obtain data for population needs assessment and planning. It provides a brief tool to collect a minimum dataset by non-specialists. Third-party informants-informal carers or involved professionals-are used as data sources.

Identifying older people with dementia: the effectiveness of a multiservice census.

A census of all relevant services in an area can be used to identify people with mental impairment suggestive of dementia. Two censuses in Tayside, Scotland, were used to test the effectiveness of this method. False positives accounted for 12% of returns.

Matching services to needs in the health care of elderly people.

This paper is based on the results of a postal enquiry to health care professionals working in the care of elderly people in a Scottish Health Board. Responses fall into three main categories. The first refers to issues of process, where lack of information or delays in response create problems.

Perceived mismatches between needs and services in the health care of elderly people.

A postal enquiry to professionals involved in service delivery points to a number of problems in the process of referring elderly people appropriately. These problems related to lack of choice and constrained options, rather than mis-referral through inadequate assessment.