Policy-Making and Planning in the Health Sector

Now, as when this book was originally published in 1982, health services have shown themselves only too capable of absorbing a large share of the resources that nations have available for public and private expenditure. Then, as now, as nations are faced with problems of slow or negative economic growth, government resources are increasingly directed towards setting limits on the resources absorbed by the health sector. Looking especially at the UK and USA, the book explores the challenges that countries face in attempting to improve the health and well-being of their communities through conscious planning of health-related activities. It is argued that there is often a huge credibility gap between the rhetoric of comprehensive planning and the reality of health policy-making and planning in many societies. The book identifies feasible approaches that can be made to improve decision-making in the health sector.

Professor Anne Mills DCMG CBE MA DHSA PhD FMedSci FRS is Professor of Health Economics and Policy at The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and was LSHTM’s Deputy Director and Provost from 2012-22. She is a worldwide authority on health economics and health systems. She has advised multilateral, bilateral and government agencies on numerous occasions, and was a member of WHO’s Commission on Macroeconomics and Health. She is a former President of the International Health Economics Association (iHEA).

Over more than 40 years, Anne Mills has played a leading role in the development of the field of health economics and health systems research in low- and middle-income countries, supporting capacity development. Her main research interests encompass the financing and organisation of health systems in low- and middle-income countries, especially the impact of different systems of finance and provision on demand, utilization, equity and efficiency, the relevance of provider markets and contracting-out in various country contexts, and the role of the private health sector. She has also been heavily engaged in research on the economics of tropical disease control, especially malaria, including both economic evaluation of interventions and delivery strategies.

Anne Mills received a CBE in 2006 and a DCMG in 2015 in recognition of her services to international health. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences. Her awards include the Galen Medal for Therapeutics and the Prince Mahidol Award for Medicine.