Authors' objectives:

This report aims to provide: - estimates of the costs of individual components of the child health surveillance (CHS) programme - a register of the costs of each element of the CHS programme in a form that can be updated.

It was not part of the purpose of this work to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of CHS, because of the absence of information on the relative effectiveness of components of the programme.

Authors' recommendations: Despite common policies (e.g. for a Health Authority), CHS checks (and their components) vary widely in their actual delivery. Because components are often undertaken simultaneously, it is difficult to identify any significant time savings from omitting any of the individual elements (apart from the HDT and vision tests on separate occasions). Data on the effectiveness of CHS checks in meeting their broad objectives and on the specific components in meeting their objectives are needed to complement the cost data - cheap models of delivery may or may not be cost-effective. There appears to be great variation in the coverage of relevant health education topics. Because of the wide diversity observed in practice, a register of the costed time inputs, which could be updated as salaries change, has not been prepared.

Authors' methods: Cost study

Project Status: Completed

URL for project: http://www.hta.ac.uk/954

Year Published: 2001

English language abstract: An English language summary is available

Publication Type: Not Assigned

Country: England, United Kingdom

Organisation Name: NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme

Contact Address: NIHR Journals Library, National Institute for Health and Care Research, Evaluation, Trials and Studies Coordinating Centre, Alpha House, University of Southampton Science Park, Southampton SO16 7NS, UK

Contact Name: journals.library@nihr.ac.uk

Contact Email: journals.library@nihr.ac.uk

Copyright: 2009 Queen's Printer and Controller of HMSO