Primary care trusts (PCTs) are struggling to deliver the demanding modernisation agenda set for them by ministers. In consequence, two new policy themes - stronger market incentives and the decentralisation of budgetary power - have been introduced to strengthen the commissioning role of PCTs. This discussion paper looks at how ...
The King's Fund's response to the Department of Health's consultation on options for the future of Payment by Results (PbR), investigating whether ambitions for PbR might be mutually exclusive, and whether, as a single policy lever, PbR can be expected to help achieve any or all of these ambitions.
Evidence from the King's Fund responding to the Health Select Committee's inquiry into potential changes to primary care trusts' functions and numbers arising from the Department of Health document, Commissioning a Patient-Led NHS.
Primary care trusts (PCTs) provide a broad and complex range of community-based services. However, the commissioning and management of these services have been a challenge for the NHS and in particular for PCTs. As PCTs provide community health services, there is a potential conflict of interest for their role as ...
Primary care trusts (PCTs) spend around 75 per cent of the NHS budget in England. How do they decide on their spending priorities? This paper examines the data collected by the Department of Health on the amounts PCTs spend on the 23 programmes of care based on medical conditions such ... and An update to the briefing "Local variations in NHS spending priorities" published in 2006.
The pace of change and reform in the NHS has been relentless as government and those who work in the NHS seek ways to improve the service. The King's Fund set up an expert working group to examine how effective the current incentives were in achieving this aim. The group ...
Unhealthy behaviours - smoking, alcohol misuse, poor diet, lack of exercise - lead to ill health, with resulting costs to individuals, to the NHS and to society as a whole. PCTs are expected to commission support to help people change their behaviour to adopt healthier lifestyles - but what should ...