Objectives-To explore the assumptions underlying consumers'responses to questions of resource priorities in the NHS.

Design-Qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with a heterogeneous sample of 16 patients drawn from a general practice.

Results

Interviewees were not persuaded that they had a legitimate role to play in the prioritisation of services.

They supported the principle of equity and were reluctant to use their own personal needs as a basis for resource allocation ; instead they argued from what they perceived to be the needs of others.

Conclusions-Paradoxically, surveys of consumers'views on health care priorities probably do not elicit the personal ideas of respondents but tap into a more general ideological position closer to an earlier collectivist notion of health care.