Summary issues. What is the range of services relevant to issues of health care rationing? What are the objectives of the NHS and what is the range of ethically defensible criteria for discriminating between competing claims for resources? Whose values should be taken into account? Who should undertake rationing? What accountability mechanisms are appropri- ate? How explicit should be the principles by which rationing is conducted? What additional information would be required to make rationing more explicit and those respon- sible more accountable? Is there enough knowledge to implement particular rationing strategies successfully?