That is the claim made by a leading statistician in a Civitas Online Report, "Eye of Newt and Toe of Frog: a Good Formula for Health?" If he is right, the new formula, introduced by John Hutton in 2003, may be wasting billions, and may be responsible for some current primary care trust deficits.

The formula gives some trusts twice as much money per head as others get. It was constructed by dubious statistical methods from data that had no direct connection to medical need. It can be said to bear little, if any, relationship to that need.

The formula is based on the report "Allocation of Resources to English Areas" from NHS Scotland's ISD consultancy - still accessible at the UCL website

The author, Mervyn Stone, is Emeritus Professor of Statistics at University College London

Civitas 020 7799 6677

Click Here to read the report online