ABSTRACT
It is axiomatic that the strategic planning or operational management of health care services is complicated. Many different people – with many different views – contribute to both processes: users, carers, care professionals and non-clinical managers. Reliable data and information on which to undertake planning and management tasks are often not routinely available or are scarce and difficult to locate. There may be diverse outcomes for different groups of people or parts of the system depending on decisions taken in allocating resources. Identifying which of these factors are most important or significant (and which criteria to judge them against), and comparing them with each other as well as a backcloth of targets and resource constraints – is a daunting task.
