The QALY Toolkit

QALYs (quality adjusted life years) represent a powerful addition to the range of evaluative techniques for use in assessing the impact of health care. In the past such benefits have portrayed in terms of their contribution to life expectancy. The ability to adjust for quality of life is an important step which permits comparisons to be made between specific forms of intervention, and between competing programmes of health care. The measurement of quality of life is fundamental to the calculation of QALYs and is achieved, in this case, by using an index first described by Rachel Rosser (now Professor of Psychiatry, Middlesex Hospital, London). This 'toolkit' brings together all the relevant background information on measuring QALYs. The paper sets out the background to the Rosser index, including both the descriptive classification of disability/distress states and their associated valuations.