Fathoming the PCT funding formula with Excel graphics Mervyn Stone

Short Description
Fathoming the PCT funding formula with Excel graphics. 1. Mervyn Stone. Research Report 254, entitled “A PCT funding formula for England based on faith may …

Website: www.ucl.ac.uk | Filesize: 47kb

Content
Fathoming the PCT funding formula with Excel graphics1
Mervyn Stone
Research Report 254, entitled “A PCT funding formula for England based on faith may be wasting
billions”, employed a sequential graphical technique that offers some insight into the influence of the
socio-economic factors that make up the target (weighted capitation) funding formula. This was to help
PCT managers and other interested parties to understand why what the formula offers them differs so
much from what other PCTs get.
There are three amounts of money involved in the current arguments about those PCT deficits that the
Department of Health chooses to attribute to poor management:
(i) the actual allocation- strongly influenced by the target formula but not yet reached (upwards or
downwards) by many PCTs
(ii) the target formula itself
(iii) the deserved amount- what the PCT ought to have been given by some formula based on direct
measurement of health needs rather than on socio-economic proxies responsive to current political
pressures.
No-one yet knows much about what “deserved” should be for any PCT. When “actual” significantly
exceeds “deserved”, the PCT is likely to be in surplus and therefore…