The link between health spending and health outcomes for the new English primary care trusts

This report describes a model which takes into account population need in a way that has not previously been undertaken. The authors note that their work has a number of limitations including the use of a rather narrow outcome indicator (mortality) and the need to assume a relatively stable pattern of spending by PCTs across programmes over the recent past. Notwithstanding these limitations, the study offers clear confirmation that current expenditure by PCTs on some important programmes of care is highly cost-effective and illustrates how programme budgeting data can be used to generate information which might usefully inform PCTs' spending decisions.

Published June 2009, 64 pages