Many health-care systems allocate funding according to measures of need. The utilisation approach for measuring need rests on the assumptions that use of health care is determined by demand and supply and that need is an important element of demand.

The paper presents two taxonomies for classifying global and transnational health-promoting activities according to three parameters of publicness -non-rivalry of benefits, non-excludability of non-payers and the aggregation technologies.

Since the November 2001 Pre-Budget Report, there has been much speculation surrounding how much the UK spends on health and how much more it would need to spend in order to reach the average level of spending seen across European Union countries. An aspiration to increase UK health spending to the average European level was first made by the Prime Minister in January 2000. In addition, the Labour Party manifesto states that 'over time we will bring UK health spending up to the EU average'. More recently, the Prime Minister has confirmed that he would like to see UK health spending reach the European average by 2005. This short note compares the level of health spending in the UK with that overseas and discusses how much more the UK is likely to need to spend on health if it is to meet the Prime Minister's stated target.

The demand for certain types of health care services depends on decisions of both the individual and the health care provider.

The government's report, <i>Opportunity for All: Tackling Poverty and Social Exclusion</i> (Department of Social Security, 1999), identified poor health as one of the major problems associated with low income.

This commentary examines the role of both the public and private sectors in delivering healthcare in the UK. How does the UK compare with other countries? What is the role of private finance in the delivery of healthcare? What variations in NHS quality are seen across the UK? How much additional pressure is there likely to be on the NHS budget in future as a result of an ageing population?

In spite of government dominance in financing health care in many countries, the private health care sector remains important.

This report studies the demand for private health insurance in the UK using data from the British Social Attitudes Survey.

It is widely accepted proposition that one of the aims of the UK National Health Service is to allocate health care on the basis of need.