NHSSCOTLAND RESOURCE ALLOCATION COMMITTEE

NHSScotland Resource Allocation Committee

Ensuring Fair Shares for everyone across Scotland

The NHSScotland Resource Allocation Committee (NRAC) was established in 2005 to improve the current method used to divide the NHS budget among the NHS Boards.

Since 2000, 75% of the budget of NHS Boards has been distributed via the Arbuthnott Formula. This provides funding for Hospital and Community Health Services and GP Prescribing. The Arbuthnott Formula distributes this money based on a weighted capitation approach that starts with the number of people resident in each NHS Board area and then makes adjustments for the age/sex of the NHS Board population, their needs based on morbidity and life circumstances (including deprivation) and the additional costs of providing services in remote and rural areas. This formula was created within the values of the NHS to seek to provide equal opportunity of access to free healthcare at the point of need.

NRAC will refine and extend the Arbuthnott Formula by evaluating new sources of evidence to determine healthcare need in different groups of people and use new information to identify items that influence the costs of healthcare provision. We'll also be considering how we can extend the formula to cover other areas of healthcare expenditure (such as primary care dentistry, eye and pharmacy services) and considering how NHS services changes (such as the Kerr report) will affect resource allocation in the future.