Locality health planning: constructing a database

Family Practitioner Committees (FPCs) became independent health authorities as of 1 April 1985. Their remit was to be more responsive to public demands, be accountable directly to the Secretary of State for service delivery and to ensure comprehensive plans in consultation with the professions and collaboration with health authorities and other organisations. One year later, in 1986, the Green Paper on Primary Care pointed to “the scope for improving the quality, effectiveness and value for money which the patients get from them.” But whilst no one would dispute these goals the problem is to measure them. These two issues – of the need for but almost complete absence of planning and lack of information – were the motivation for this project. Barnsley FPC had been selected as one of the first in the country to be ‘computerised’ and the Administrator, Keith Houghton, was concerned to find ways in which this enhanced technological power could be used to improve programme planning and contacted the Centre for Health Economics for help. This paper reports on the results of their joint project. It shows how information of different kinds relating to objectives, resources, outcomes and utilisation can be brought together via the computerised age-sex register and suggests ways in which they can be used to improve the planning of primary care.