Taking equity seriously: A dilemma for government from allocating resources to primary care groups

Abstract

The NHS was created with the objective of reducing inequity,9 10 but this raises questions over which type of equity is being sought.11 The NHS reforms introduced two types of local insurers: general practitioner fundholders and health authorities.12 Fundholding seems to compromise two different types of equity: clinical equity, which is achieved when clinicians use only grounds of clinical priority to decide when patients are to be treated, and financial equity, which is achieved when local insurers within the NHS are allocated equal resources per capita, taking account of the relative risk of their populations.