This document looks at the undertaking by the King's Fund and by the Nuffield Trust to do a complete unit costing of a small number of representative London and provincial hospitals. Specific activities included in the investigation were: to study the administrative organisation of the hospitals; to investigate the existing accounting systems and methods and, where in operation, the costing systems and methods; to apply two questions to each hospital 1) is a costing system applicable to hospitals? 2) if a costing system is appropriate, what is the most appropriate system to adopt?