This volume contributes to the ongoing debate about healthcare rationing by bringing together case studies of resource allocation at different levels of the healthcare system. Drawing on research from the United Kingdom, Europe and North America, it examines issues such as prioritisation and access to care in a range of hospital and community settings.

David Hughes is a Professor in the School of Health Science at the University of Wales Swansea and Dean of the Faculty of Education and Health Studies. His current research interests include the reformed NHS, health care rationing and the changing division of health labour. He has written on a range of topics in the fields of medical sociology, socio-legal studies and health policy.

Donald W. Light is the Professor of comparative health care systems at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and a fellow at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Trained as a sociologist at the University of Chicago and Brandeis, he is a Faculty Associate in the Department of Sociology at Princeton University. Professor Light has written about distributive justice in the BMJ and is co-author of Benchmarks of Fairness for Health Care Reform (1996).