Alternative objectives in allocating care to the elderly people in Durham County

Abstract

This thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter one reviews the general provision of care for the elderly with an account of national and regional planning policy. Section one of this chapter is concerned with national planning policy and section two relates to the norms of care and geographical background of Durham County. Chapter two is a review of some previous studies in which mathematical programming was used to assist health care planning for the community in general and care for elderly people in particular. Several different models produced by other researchers are described. Chapter three develops a model, on similar lines to some of those previously discussed, and applies this to conditions in Durham County using relevant local data. Alternative formulations are found to be necessary in order to obtain feasible solutions and these are worked out and their results compared.