This paper attempts to determine econometrically the factors which affect the use of NHS hospital resources by small area level populations. The results are interpreted as revealing the implicit weights used to allocate resources between populations within a given Regional Health Authority (RHA). We test for the constancy of such weights across RHAs and examine whether the implicit weights adopted for the intraregional allocation of hospital resources are consistent with the bureaucratic rule used for inter-regional hospital resource allocation (the RAWP formula). Data were provided by six English RHAs and the explanator variables include the small Area's age/sex composition, standardized mortality rate (SMR), hospital access score and various Census-based measures of social deprivation. The major finding is that for intra-regional allocation, the influence of SMRs is constant across RHAs, but has a weight lower than that implied by the resent RAWP formula: the influence of social factors is not constant across RHAs. This paper extends the work carried out by Coopers and Lybrand for the 1986 RAWP review.