ABSTRACT
The aim of health service planning is to improve the health of the population. Health for All principles require priority for those whose health is most disadvantaged. The difficulty of measuring the output of health services makes it difficult to fit health plans into national plans for all sectors, which tend to be dominated by economic considerations. Planners can too easily assume that expenditure on health services is simply current consumption which takes resources away from investment in agriculture and manufacturing. An unregulated health market leads to waste because of the peculiarities of the demand and supply for health services. The health market is practically unique in the lack of mechanisms for self-regulation. The basic assumption underlying the use of the system developed in the Soviet Union was that all health ‘needs’ could and should be met by the organised health services.
