Don't compensate less efficient teaching hospitals, redistribute clinical medical students

EDITOR—Bevan delivers a refreshing critique of the allocations paid by the service increment for teaching (SIFT), which ostensibly are aimed at compensating healthcare organisations for the excess service costs resulting from the teaching of undergraduate clinical medical students.1

In response to the introduction of the internal market we carried out empirical research into the size and distribution of the direct costs to the NHS of teaching medical students from Leicester University Medical School.2 This included a student diary study with …