A Dicker1, D Armstrong. 1. Department of Public Health Medicine, United Medical and Dental School, London.
Abstract
OBJECTIVES: To explore the assumptions underlying consumers' responses to questions of resource priorities in the NHS. DESIGN: Qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with a heterogeneous sample of 16 patients drawn from a general practice. RESULTS: Interviewees were not persuaded that they had a legitimate role to play in the prioritisation of services. They supported the principle of equity and were reluctant to use their own personal needs as a basis for resource allocation; instead they argued from what they perceived to be the needs of others. CONCLUSIONS: Paradoxically, surveys of consumers' views on health care priorities probably do not elicit the personal ideas of respondents but tap into a more general ideological position closer to an earlier collectivist notion of health care.
OBJECTIVES: To explore the assumptions underlying consumers' responses to questions of resource priorities in the NHS. DESIGN: Qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with a heterogeneous sample of 16 patients drawn from a general practice. RESULTS: Interviewees were not persuaded that they had a legitimate role to play in the prioritisation of services. They supported the principle of equity and were reluctant to use their own personal needs as a basis for resource allocation; instead they argued from what they perceived to be the needs of others. CONCLUSIONS: Paradoxically, surveys of consumers' views on health care priorities probably do not elicit the personal ideas of respondents but tap into a more general ideological position closer to an earlier collectivist notion of health care.
Entities:
Keywords:
Empirical Approach; Health Care and Public Health