The role of the staff MFF in distributing NHS funding: Taking account of differences in local labour market conditions

R Elliott; A Ma; M Sutton; D Skatun; N Rice; S Morris; A Mcconnachie

Journal article

The role of the staff MFF in distributing NHS funding: Taking account of differences in local labour market conditions

R Elliott, A Ma, M Sutton, D Skatun, N Rice, S Morris, A Mcconnachie

Health Economics | WILEY | Published : 2010

DOI: 10.1002/hec.1489

Abstract

The National Health Service (NHS) in England distributes substantial funds to health-care providers in different geographical areas to pay for the health care required by the populations they serve. The formulae that determine this distribution reflect populations' health needs and local differences in the prices of inputs. Labour is the most important input and area differences in the price of labour are measured by the Staff Market Forces Factor (MFF). This Staff MFF has been the subject of much debate. Though the Staff MFF has operated for almost 30 years this is the first academic paper to evaluate and test the theory and method that underpin the MFF. The theory underpinning the Staff MF..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Matt Sutton Author

Grants

Funding Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the following people for providing data or facilitating access to data essential to this project: Michael Haslam and Francis Dickinson at the Department of Health; Felix Ritchie, Rhys Davies, Marco Oliver and Joseph Robjohns in the Business Data Linking team at the Office for National Statistics (ONS); Bob Watson, Clive Dobbs and Tom Ellis at ONS who are responsible for the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings; Claire Thompson at the NHS Information Centre for securing access to HM Revenue and Customs data. We would also like to thank members of the Delivery Analytic team in the Department of Health and the Technical Advisory Group for comments and guidance throughout the project. Sarah Horne at the Department of Communities and Local Government provided very helpful comments on an earlier draft of the paper. HERU is supported by the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health Directorate General. Part of this research was undertaken under a grant from the Department of Health in England.