• Explain some of the reasons why the NHS has become overstretched, year on year

lack of funding

lack of staffing

covid 19

incrreased use of healthcare due to increasing age of population

• Explain different strategies that could be used in NHS resource allocation, and describe their strengths & weaknesses

• Describe NICE and outline its role in technology appraisals and NHS rationing

• Outline the role of SMC and describe its involvement in NHS rationing

• Describe what a 'QALY' is, and its use in the decision-making process to purchase health care resources, and evaluate its strengths and weaknesses

• Give examples of controversial uses of the healthcare budget

some say that 'the NHS was founded on a fallacy' - describe why they say this

the aim of the NHS being founded was to improve the health of the nation and thus decrease the demand for healthcare

the NHS was built on the premise that there is a finite amount of ill health, this however is very much NOT true as soon as the NHS was introduced demand for healthcare increased exponentially due to things such as chronic conditions or people who had been put off going for healthcare due to cost.

and ontop of this, the fact that everyone was getting the same good quality of care resulted in people living longer and therefore getting ill more often with more complex conditions therefore consuming even greater resources.

therefore the fact that the NHS was build on decreasing healthcare workload is a fallacy as it actually worked to increase the workload