A health planner's delight?

This week's issue should please health planners —for it shows that spending more money onhealth care doesn't produce better health, that simple interventions can be more effective than complex ones, and that an intermittent treatment may be just as effective as a continuous one.

For people who argue that all the NHS needs is a bit more money, there is a natural experiment to test that assertion within the British Isles. The NHS in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland receives more funding …