The expansion of community residential facilities for people with a mental handicap requires a significant amount of investment of society’s scarce resources. If the resources are to be used efficiently it is essential that an evaluation of the relative costs and effects of alternative methods...

The first objective of the World Health Organisation’s ‘Health For All’ policy is the reduction of health related inequalities by some 25% (WHO, 1985). The UK Government’s endorsement of the HFA targets therefore indicated that health inequalities should never have been off the political...

The proposals contained in the White Paper ‘Working for Patients’ have been described as an attempt to introduce competition into a non-competitive situation. Together with the introduction of practice budgets for family practitioners, the granting of self-governing status to NHS hospitals...

The number of children resident in large mental handicap hospitals has fallen substantially in recent years but those that remain tend to be amongst the most profoundly handicapped. If the benefits of community care are to be extended to this group of children then new residential facilities...

This study examines the test-retest reliability of two methods of establishing health preference weights and assesses the effectiveness of a brief values-clarification exercise. Survey participants were randomly allocated to one of two groups and received either a standard protocol for eliciting...