Priority setting reaches its second phase

To mark the second international conference on priority setting in health care three papers illustrate what one of their authors, Soren Holm, calls the “second phase” of priority setting (p 1000). Holm argues that the first phase—a search for priority setting systems which through rational decision making rules could tell a decision maker how a given service should be prioritised in relation to others—has given way to a realisation that attention must be paid to the priority setting mechanisms themselves: they must be transparent and accountable.