Right back at you
The Government's response to the Health Select Committee's report on Health Inequalities offers a defence of its policy and practice. Areas challenged include: the "trade off" between redistributing health resources to tackle inequalities and NICE technology appraisal, the government's commitment to evaluating initiatives, effectiveness of the Sure Start programme and the vulnerability of public health budgets. On this last matter, the government's paper notes that ACRA (the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation) is working on a new approach to inequalities and allocation after 2010-11. The Government also appears to accept the Committee's recommendation that it needed a clearer understanding of how PCTs spend funding provided under the inequalities allocation.