Programme Budgeting – Testing The Approach in Scotland

This paper describes the pilot application of Programme Budgeting and Marginal Analysis (PBMA) in Scotland. Within the Health Care Quality Strategy for NHSScotland one of the three quality ambitions is concerned with providing a more efficient and effective health service. This paper supports this ambition by discussing how outcome measures could be used, along with cost data disaggregated in this way, to inform discussions around the value for money associated with different programmes.