Rate All Spending In Pounds Per QALY

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence uses the "Quality Adjusted Life year" (QALY) as a measure of how much good a drug does. To be approved, the drug must buy at least one QALY for each £30,000 spent.

We aim to trial the use of pounds per QALY in areas outside of health as an aid in decision making, with a view to rolling it out across all areas of government if it is successful. Using a uniform measure across defence, policing, education and all other areas of spending would give the public and government an idea as to where money can be best spent to achieve a rapid benefit. We believe that making explicit the estimates that go into justifying spending might give better results than hiding justifications or using less evidence based methods.