By nature the voucher scheme has one major aim, which is increasing utilisation of health facilities; it rarely includes empowerment of families to prepare for birth.
This is achieved with increasing utilisation of model based control.
However, it is plausible that increasing utilisation of under resourced health facilities can result in stresses to the health system, overcrowding, poor environmental conditions, overworked health workers, shortages of drugs and supplies and sub standard clinical practices.
It was forecast to grow by 16% annually for the next 7 years to reach $1.4 billion by 2015, a growth that will "primarily be driven by increasing utilisation of SPECT/CT and PET/CT, the increase in the number of cancer patients across Europe, technological advances, and improvements in the quality of care" [ 27].
The current medical climate is rapidly undergoing change, with increasing utilisation of outsourcing to independent providers.
The results of the proposed research will be useful to health policy makers in increasing utilisation of domestic health services.
Perinatal healthcare service characteristics are presented in table 2. There was an increased utilisation of antenatal services, trained delivery attendants, institutional deliveries and postnatal services in the last 10 years.
The very elderly (>80 years) UK population is increasing and along with it there is an increased utilisation of critical care resources [ 1].
The proximate aim of the intervention is to increase utilisation of appropriate community services, which may in turn reduce health risk behaviour, promote empowerment and thereby achieve sustainable improvements in health.
